


Forging Pack

by Ladeeknight



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Episode AU: s08e03 The Long Night, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fan Fix, First Time, Fix-It, Forge Sex, MaidSlayer, Mi'lady, Road Trips, The Long Night, arya is a badass, crypt fix, roll in the hay, sansan, the bull - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:03:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladeeknight/pseuds/Ladeeknight
Summary: New Summary from the Darkest time line: Canon is shit. We shall overcome.New Summary: Canon is a ladder...it give us the boost we need to soar. When canon is good we can always come back and then soar again. This is a fix for season 8. It starts with the forge scene and then goes on to cover what I think Sansa is doing the night before the battle. The Crypt fix chapter then gives us a sneak peak at Jaime in Brienne before going into my re-write of the Battle of Winterfell. Canon is assumed anywhere that I don't do a retouch. I do plan to keep this up through out the season. Also feel welcome to talk about the show in the comments.Old Summary: This is a fix for the awkwardness that HBO served us the other night, or my take on how Gendarya should have happened.I am famously unable to leave a one shot be and need an outlet for my angst at have my ship ignored. I figured why not expand on something I've already got going with some SanSan.





	1. Forging Pack

Arya strode purposefully into the quiet forge on bare cat's feet. She was pleased to see Gendry was hammering away on his own. He stood just in his burn-scarred apron and low-slung breeches, his skin darkened by soot and the sullen glow from the forge. The tang of sweat and the haze of wood smoke haloed Gendry as he pounded away intently as if nothing else existed, but what was in front of him. Arya took a moment to admire the ripple and flex of his muscles. His “thinking face,” comprised mostly of slightly furrowed brow and compressed lips, always made Arya smile back when her emotions played all over her face like pups rolling over each other in the yard.  
As if her gaze was a tap on the shoulder or a finger nail dragged down his spine, Gendry’s bright gazed flicked to her. The intensity of his expression didn’t change, and Arya's stomach fluttered. She allowed one brow to raise, as her eyes perused his form boldly. He swallowed, and his gaze skimmed her highlights. _Not many curves to linger on, but he’s definitely interested._  
“Have you finished my wish?” she asked abruptly.  
“I’ve got a weapon for you,” he answered smiling and shaking his head, as he quenched what looked to be a sword in the cold wash. He then laid the weapon out on the work bench and shrugged his apron over his head. Arya's eyes followed Gendry as he reached up to pull a long wooden-hafted, obsidian-tipped spear from a rack on the wall. Throughout this display, muscles rolled and tightened all over his body causing things inside of Arya to roll and tighten. _That’s good. That’ what I’m here for._  
“What did the Red Woman want with you?” Arya asked, idly probing as she tested the weight of the new weapon and demonstrated her own attributes by moving through some of the more intricate quarterstaff drills that she had learned at the House of Black and White.  
Gendry looked taken aback but answered honestly. “My blood.”  
“What’s so special about your blood?” She fired back truly curious now, letting it show by increasing the rate of her revolutions.  
“It’s King’s blood. I’m one of Robert Baratheon’s many bastards. That was my secret all along. I found it out from _her._ ” Surprise halted all Arya’s movements. _Gendry is a King's bastard._ She filled the knowledge away for future use to focus on the present. The emphasis Gendry placed on “her” told Arya where the pain was.  
“How’d she take it? Your blood I mean.” Arya advanced a pace and Gendry withdrew down the long workbench away from the fire and toward a mound of hay. As Gendry retreated into the darkness, he hung his head and broke their eye contact. He did not want to talk about this, so Arya could not let it go. She was too much of a hunter for that. _Follow the pain. That is where the truth is._  
Gendry glanced back up at her implacable face and sighed. “She tied me up, stripped me down and put leeches all over me.” He spat the words out like they were poison. _It tastes like half-truth._  
Arya’s eyes narrowed. She wanted this union of the flesh, but her Stark heart craved honesty too. _Maybe I should just stop asking difficult questions and get on with it, then. Maybe I am stalling. No, I will have this my way or not at all._ “But that wasn’t all that happened,” she challenged.  
The muscles in Gendry’s jaw bulged as if something were trying to escape through the side of his face. _This is going to be bad. That's ok. I have seen bad and done bad._  
“She started out by…” He blushed and coughed. “She laid me out on a fancy carved bed and climbed on top of me. She put my cock in her. I thought she wanted me, but the next thing I know she's tightened straps I didn't even notice, and I can't move. Then she put leeches on me.” He swallowed, and Arya could hear how dry his throat was. This was not a pleasant memory for him. Every line of his tensed body spoke of fear and humiliation...and defensiveness. _Has he told this story to someone else and they dismissed his pain?_ Suddenly his brilliant blue eyes flashed into her defiantly, scrutinizing her face for… _What? Humor? Pity?_ Arya let her expression reflect her list-scribing rage and deep sorrow.  
She stepped toward Gendry, and he moved back. She put out her hand the way that she would to a twitchy horse and took another step forward. This time Gendry stood his ground, and her palm landed on solid muscle. His heart thundered, and his nipple stiffened. “Would you like me to kill her for you?” She felt his breath whoosh across the back of her hand, raising the fine hairs there, as he exhaled something between surprise and amusement. _He still thinks of me as a little girl._ “Most of the names on my old list are gone. I crossed off more than a few myself. There is room for her there.”  
Gendry brought his hand up to curl a lock of hair around her ear. Sparks from that touch ignited a wildfire that blazed down her throat engulfing each nipple then burning down to her core. She turned her head to graze his knuckles with her teeth. He did not pull his hand away. _Good._  
“Besides the Red Woman, how many women have you been with?”  
"What?” Now he did pull his hand back and stepped away from hers.  
She turned away from him and made a show of laying aside her new weapon carefully, giving her something else to do with her hands and her eyes. “Two? Twenty? It’s a simple question. Either before in Kings Landing or after.” Her gaze flicked back up to his, pinning him. _This is the last test. Please don’t fail._  
“Three. There were three…from before. None after…” He looked her straight in the eye, and every fiber of him rang with sincerity. _He even volunteered extra information. He trusts me. I can trust him. In this at least._ Arya let a smile flash across her face.  
“We are probably all going to die tomorrow. I want to know what it feels like.” _Will he find the lie between the truths?_  
Gendry winced a little at her words, but she didn’t think it was in distaste. He hadn’t liked something she said. “I thought I was coming to Winterfell to bang a hammer, not the Lord’s sister,” he said with a guarded half smile that pulled things in Arya’s chest she’d thought long dead and things between her legs that she’d just decided to bring to life. _He’s using deflective humor. What wound is he shielding?_  
Arya thought back to their argument beneath the Hollow Hill when she’d invited him to Winterfell to work steel for her brother. Her face blazed without her permission at her ridiculous declaration in the guise of asking him to be a part of her family. _Stupid Summer child! I can’t go down that road again, but I can offer him something else._ “That’s how one becomes pack.”  
Gendry made an inarticulate sound in the back of his throat. Faster than Arya would have predicted for a man of his size, he was all around her. His hand in her hair, his arm around her shoulder, his tongue in her mouth. Arya pulled back from the kiss, wiping her mouth. “Gross.”  
“I’m sorry mi’lady doesn’t like it the way we do things down in Flea Bottom,” Gendry teased through a grin and wink. “We’ll find something you do like,” he promised leaning in, his head angled further down.  
Arya put her hand out to stop him. “Don’t call me that.”  
“As mi’lady commands,” Gendry repeated with a bow that was better than her curtsies ever used to be. His lips were compressed in a failed attempt to hide his smirk.  
As in days gone by, Arya took the moment when his weight was off center to push him backwards into the hay. He went down with an oooff, and she pounced on him.  
A rolling tumble of tickling and giggles soon gave way caresses and moans. Gendry's hands were all over her and she reveled in the way his muscles felt sliding around under his skin. Arya allowed Gendry to roll her onto her back and he pushed his well-muscled thigh between her legs. The solid warmth of him there felt good to her and she ground down on him groaning shamelessly at the friction as he went for the laces on her jerkin. “Gods, Arya, I knew you’d be like this, wild and loud.”  
“Is that good?” She hated how small her voice sounded, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, even though she knew how dangerous questions could be.  
“Makes my cock throb, like nothing else,” he assured her with a smile that nearly stretched ear to ear with no trace of guile. “At least until now,” he breathed. He’d loosened her jerkin enough to get his big warm hands under her shirt as well and skinned them both up at once baring her to the waist. Now he was staring transfixed at her. Arya knew she had more scars that tits, but her body was a weapon, transportation for a dangerous soul not a walking womb to be petted and fucked. _I will not hide who I am._  
“Speaking of cocks,” She said ready to take his focus off of her. Her hands darted toward his laces.  
Gendry was not quick enough to block her though he tried. “Arya,” he groaned as she got a grip on the velvety length of him. She’d never imagined anything could feel like this and she wanted to go on touching it.  
“I want to rub my whole body with it,” she confided in wonder.  
Gendry’s cock jumped in her hand and began to leak. “And I want to jam it between your perfect little tits and cum down your throat, but that is not what you came here for. What’s more likely to happen if you keep, oh gods, if you keep wanking me like that, Stranger, your hands are strong, is I’m going to cum all over your belly, and no one will get what they want.”  
“What should I do then?” Arya asked reluctantly letting go, though she could not take her eyes off him.  
“Lift your bum so I can get your pants off.”  
Arya did so and gasped as she thrust her pelvis into Gendry’s thigh again. “You like that?” he asked as his fingers dug below the waist of her small clothes and he pushed his knee into her. Arya answered with a needy little growl and swiveled her hips. “Good,” Gendry said. “We’ll find something better to put there once I get these pants off.” Arya allowed some space between her crotch and Gendry’s thigh and with a couple of yanks he had her stark naked.  
“The straw is itchy,” Arya said rolling to her feet.  
“I’d invite you back to my bed, but there are about five apprentices sleeping in it.” Gendry’s tone was light, but his eyes were fixed on the juncture of her legs. He moved, so he was on his knees in front of her, mouth level with her nipples. “Can I?” he moved so that just the bristles of his near beard brushed the underside of her right breast at the same time his hand came up to brush lightly at the curls between her legs.  
“Yes!” she pleaded.  
Gendry increased pressure above and below. He got his wide mouth around most of her teat, including her nipple causing Arya to thrust herself into his hand. His other snaked around to cup her bottom. “Mother, Maiden, and Crone that’s even firmer than it looks,” he said between licks and sucks.  
_He likes my body!_ The thought was the last conscious one to blaze through Arya’s head as she let go of her mind, let her body take over as she would in a fight. Her hands roamed over Gendry’s shoulders, nails encouraging him to go deeper. His fingers parted her lips and slipped through her folds while his palm held fast giving her something to grind against.  
“This may hurt,” he cautioned.  
“Don't fear pain,” she mumbled just before she bit his ear just hard enough to draw blood.  
He gasped and thrust a finger deep inside her. There was the smallest twinge of pain, but mostly she liked how it felt having a part of him in her. “More,” she demanded. Suddenly she was empty and weightless. Arya could feel Gendry’s hot calloused hands on her chilly bare backside. She hooked her ankles just above the swell of his round behind and began rutting against his rippling abs. It was not long before he set her on something hard and smooth. “Cold!” she shrilled not entirely displeased with abrupt temperature difference between the anvil she was now sitting on and the warm fire at her back. Especially when Gendry was already pushing her knees aside and filling her with more fingers. It felt so good and then his thumb came to rest where his palm had been at the center of her pleasure. Her eyes flashed open, and she could see where his fingers thrust in and out of her. She could see all the muscles in his arm rigid with the effort to please her. She could appreciate the way her own body undulated against his hand striving toward a goal of the flesh. There was something else in her line of sight. “Cock!”  
“Not yet,” he ground from between clenched teeth. Beads of sweat dripped down his face making clean lines in the soot, spattering on her chest as he bent to take one of her nipples into his mouth.  
Pleasure slammed down Arya’s spine she and went rigid teetering on the edge of bliss. “Gods Gendry,” she gasped. He did not vary his strokes as he began to suck. His intent look was the last thing she saw before the world flew apart as waves of pleasure blew through her. Gendry was her only anchor in a storm of feelings Arya could not even name. Steady and sure he kept pace until things became too sensitive and she pushed his thumb away, his fingers were still in her. By then the quaking had mostly subsided, and the stars were retreating from her vision. Gendry’s handsome face and brilliant eyes greeted her as Arya slowly put herself back together.  
“Welcome back,” he said softly as he dropped a kiss on her temple resting their foreheads together.  
Arya felt boneless and limp, but safe in his arms. He still looked very tense. “Cock, now?”  
“Aye mi’lady,” and he spread her legs wider. His cock was nearly purple with want. She watched avidly as he took himself in hand, pumped twice and wiped the tip. “You’re wet enough.” Then he lined himself up and pushed carefully forward. This felt so much fuller and deeper than his fingers. It burned a little and ached some more. When he was fully seated, he hit something inside of her that sent aftershocks of pleasure coursing through her. Her eyes rolled back, but she heard Gendry suck air through his teeth and blow it out unsteadily through his mouth. He bucked against her hard sending more of those pleasurable aftershocks on a wave of pain. Arya whimpered and Gendry froze. “I’m sorry,” he said very shakily. Sweat poured off him.  
“For what?” Arya peered up at him squeezing experimentally, testing herself. She was sore, but nothing out of the ordinary for a training session.  
Gendry bucked into her again. She gasped in pleasure and pain. “For hurting you. Gods Arya when you do that it makes me want to lose control.”  
“Go ahead, then." Squeeze. "I want you to." Squeeze. "I did, and it felt really good.” Squeeze.  
“I’ll hurt you,” he said thickly. Now he wore that stubborn bull look she hadn’t seen since he refused her offer of family.  
_Well I can be stubborn too._ “I’m stronger than you think, and every hurt is a lesson.” Arya rolled her torso in a way she thought would maximize friction inside.  
Gendry was having none of it though, and he pinned her to the anvil. “I don’t want to be the reason you hurt.”  
_It is time for my honesty._ “Gendry, I like pain.” There was a beat of silence as that sunk in, and his eyes bored into her. Seemingly satisfied by what he saw there, he surged into her with more force than before. His eyes were everywhere on her face. Arya grinned at him and clamped her cunt muscles down thrusting against him. From there it was bump and grind until they found a rhythm. That lasted for a few glorious moments an evenly matched parry and thrust that Arya found exhilarating, before Gendry tore away from her gouging his cock into her stomach. Arya looked down in irritation just in time to see Gendry spill his seed on her stomach in hot gooey spurts. “I thought you were trying to avoid that.”  
“It was always going end that way. I wouldn’t want to slow you down with a baby,” his words coming raggedly between heavy breaths from the crook of her neck held a tinge of sadness and Arya could hear the lie.  
Right at this moment, she was too preoccupied with her own needs to follow that path, but later in the dark, she’d puzzle about it. Arya waited until Gendry’s cock stopped twitching against her and his breath calmed before she moved his hand between her legs. “Can we do it again?” she inquired unsure. His cock, which had only gone half soft, jumped against her.  
Gendry looked down at himself and snorted, “I guess so.” His long arm reached out to snag a shirt from a row of nearby hooks. He used it vigorously on himself and then more gently on her. Arya noticed the smear on the shirt was pink. Gendry was still looking down too. “Are you sure you want to go again?”  
“Yes, our bodies working together like that made me…” she squirmed causing pleasure and pain to zing through her.  
“Lusty,” Gendry supplied helpfully as he delved into her center with his strong fingers.  
“Yes,” she moaned moving against him.  
“Put this on,” he said, carefully withdrawing his fingers and tossing the shirt at her, “and gather up your clothes." He made quick work of his laces. “I’m going to go kick some lazy apprentices out of my bed. You can stand beside the door if you don’t want to be seen. Those dim bastards wouldn’t notice a walker there if he were quiet.”  
“I don’t care if they see me,” she stated plainly. Suddenly she was surrounded by him all over again. He didn’t stick his tongue in her mouth again, but he did hold his lips against hers for a long hot moment. She kind of liked it.


	2. Frozen Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hound comes upon Arya and Gendry. Things get awkward. Then Sansa arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to what I think should have happened. Not gonna lie, I'm feeling a little salty that SanSan is straight up being ignored. I'm not one to sulk in a corner, though so I wrote this. There will probably be more.

Sandor lurched into forge pushing off the wall that he’d leaned a lot of his drunken weight against as he’d shambled up the corridor that led to the forge. He was greeted by the sight of Little Sister and The Smith, wearing one set of clothes. The Hound smelled blood and noted Gendry’s bleeding ear and the scratches on his shoulders. Raged sobered Sandor and his lunge toward Gendry was much more effective than his stagger here had been.  
The Wolf Bitch popped up between them and he found a dagger that seemed to come from nowhere at his throat. “It’s not what it looks like,” her voice was that strange blend of scratchy and high that reminded him of a happy dog.  
“Looks like defensive wounds,” the hound growled. “Smells like sex.”  
“Looks can be deceiving,” she stated flatly.  
Sandor took a deep breath and looked the Wolf Girl over. Her face was pale and her hair even wilder than normal, but she looked calm. The white shirt that covered her to the knee was clean but for a pink smear near the hem. The Smith was in barely laced breeches, his face was scarlet, but Sandor didn’t think he blushed from shame. Muscles in the Smith's big arm bunched and Sandor tensed thinking Gendry might try something stupid, but the kid only lifted a burn-scarred hand to his ear and winced as if feeling the wound for the first time. When Sandor tensed, Arya moved the blade so that a small swath of his neck-beard was shaved of falling down his open collar, sure to drive him crazy later. That brought his attention back to her and their steel gazes clashed. “You’re all right then?”  
“If I wasn’t, he’d be dead, and I still wouldn’t need you,” Arya replied coldly, but she removed the blade from his throat.  
“I know you don’t need protecting anymore." Sandor sneered back. "Came because I was told there’d be a sword ready for me. Something new I’m supposed to try out.” Now all Sandor’s attention was for Gendry. The Smith flushed an even deeper shade and took a breath. “Save it,” Sandor forestalled. “I can see that you were interrupted; I don’t want excuses or details.”  
The rebuke seemed to snap Gendry into motion toward a freshly forged sword on the work bench. “It’s nearly done. I just haven’t put the edge on it.”  
Sandor looked down at the weapon in question. It was long and dark and it rippled between gleaming steel and glimmering layers that were not steel. The hilt was old and rusty and in want of leather wrapping the hilt. “Fuck me, is that Valyrian Steel?” Sandor barked genuinely surprised.  
“Maybe. I apprenticed for Tohbo Mott, and he was the only person in Westeros who could rework Valyrian Steel. I asked him once what was in it and he told me frozen fire. While I was supervising the unloading of the dragon glass, I heard one of the Unsullied call it frozen fire. I asked him about it and that girl, you know the one with all the hair, that the Dragon Queen brought with her, she said that’s what dragon glass is called in High Valyrian. I’ve been saving all the chips that fall from making arrow-heads. I ground them up and mixed it in molten steel. This is what I got. Lady Sansa happened to be in the forge making sure all was going according to schedule. She saw the test dagger, and she told me to forge a great sword for you. Mott used to say it was the spells he sang over them that made the Valyrian steel swords so sharp, so I don’t know if this will work the same.”  
Sandor let the words the Smith rattled off patter against his consciousness. He was entranced by the weapon in front of him. So much so he almost felt drunk again. And Sansa had had it made for him. Since arriving in Winterfell he had not so much as clapped eyes on the girl. There had been a couple of moments in the yard when he could have sworn there were eyes on him, but when he looked around no was looking at him. _Why would they?_ And once or twice he’d walked into a hallway with the scent of her still hanging in the air. He understood the message plain enough; she had no need for a scarred old dog. Her shiny new Lady Knight did a much better job of watching her back than he ever could. The thought of Brienne rankled. He’d been glad of the news she delivered about the She-Wolf being alive and dangerous when they met in King’s Landing, but that good will was well worn through since he’d been training with her while her fucking squire was playing guard to the Little Bird.  
Sandor took a deep breath to push all that horse shit out of his mind so he could best admire his new sword. He soon became enamored all over again. _The Smith does fine work._ There was a creaking sound behind him near the door. Sandor could not be bothered with that at the moment. If some cock sucker had come to put a knife in his back, Sandor would just be trying out his new sword as a club first. It would not be the first time he’d killed someone with a blunted weapon. “Fuck spells, and fuck songs. And speaking of, tell your pretty sister I’ll test her gods damned sword. I’m sure it won’t matter to her whether I get killed if doesn’t work like she thinks it will.”  
“Tell her yourself,” Arya said looking over his shoulder toward the entrance.  
Sandor begged all the gods for it not to be her, but the gods hated him so when he whirled around not only was the Little Bird perched in the doorway, but she was so beautifully cold and distant that she looked like frozen fire. He was saved from having to tell Sansa anything as her icy stare moved deliberately from him to the She-Wolf. One copper brow lifted without causing her forehead or any other part of her face to crease. “Sister.”  
Arya copied Sansa’s expression exactly only the dark sister allowed her lips to curl with such insolence that Sandor was impressed. “Sister.”  
Sansa’s chilly gaze then moved to Gendry, her head tilted to one side and her lips crimped a fraction. “Thank you, Gendry, for nearly completing the task I set for you.”  
The boy’s face was so red now that Sandor feared his eyes would pop out and go bouncing around the room. Gendry ducked his head. “Mi-“  
Sansa raised her hand to halt the smith’s speech. “Please don’t call me mi’lady. I know you don’t listen when my sister asks, but I really mean it.”  
“I really mean it too,” Arya said with a whiny edge to her voice that Sandor hadn’t realized he'd missed.  
“Quit your winging, girl, or you’ll get the boy whipped,” as he spoke, Sandor reached out without thinking and tapped the exact spot on the back of Arya’s head that he’d tapped with the flat of his ax at the Twins.  
Arya slapped his hand away, but not with the hand that was holding a dagger, and gave him a scathing look. “Gendry is in no danger of getting a whipping,” she assured Sandor and she turned what started as a reassuring look toward Gendry. When the Smith’s gaze met hers, however, that look changed and Sandor very much wanted to be somewhere else.  
“I can put the edge on the Sword myself,” he rasped his voice nearly mimicking the sound the task would make, barely avoiding ending the statement with “Little Bird”. _Fuck me, why did I drink so much?_ Sandor scooped up his prize and started for the door. His leg was feeling a little stiff. _Shouldn’t have moved so fast when I turned._ Sandor had no idea how he was going to get his bulk through that door without brushing rudely past Sansa, but if he stopped, he was not sure he’d get going again.  
“There are whetstones on the shelf by the door,” Gendry said with a grateful look.  
Sandor grunted to acknowledge the information and the gratitude.  
“Clegane,” the sound of his name on Sansa’s lips was everything and it drew his full attention to her at once. He faltered to a halt in front of her and inclined his head politely. He really had no idea what had come over him. He hated these lordling capers. “Will you walk with me?” Her tone was imperious, but there was some softening in her deep blue eyes that asked, instead 'can you walk with me?'  
Sandor felt galvanized, and he was tempted to hate himself for it. _No I’ve been down that road too many times. I am not that man anymore._ “Aye, if we go slow. After all, can’t stay here with these fu-“ He stopped just short of stating an awkward truth when he’d really just meant to cover his insecurity with profanity.  
Sandor threw one last look over his shoulder to see that the love birds were already eye-fucking each other. Cringing as he reached up and grabbed a whetstone, Sandor turned back to Sansa who he was shocked to find had an elbow crooked toward him, and a disgusted smile on her face. “Hell of a way to spend a last night, I suppose,” Sansa said, the dynamic between her melodic, cultured voice and the mild curse moved something inside Sandor that he had truly hoped was dead.  
He attempted to change the subject. “I may not be up on Northern manners, but I’m pretty sure it’s me who should offer you the arm.”  
Sansa snorted batting at him with one arm while waggling the elbow of the other in his general direction. Sandor had never seen her like this. _Maybe she's drunk too._ He wouldn’t have dreamed that such a delicate nose could make a sound like that. “There are no manners in the North since my mother died. And for the number of times you have saved my life I feel like we can dispense with tradition in regards to who’s on top.”  
For a moment Sandor became very still. Well, everything but his heart and his cock were still. Sansa continued to look him at him, her Tully blues unwaveringly fastened on his eyes. “Either I’m way too drunk, or you’re flirting with me.”  
“Why can’t it be both?” she asked slipping her arm in his. _She is drunk. All the more reason to go along with her to make sure nothing bad happens_ Her other hand dipped into her furs and pulled out a wine skin. “Dornish red is your favorite, right? I’ve got wine, and I am a woman. It seems like you are going to have a sweet night.”  
Sandor decided that he’d died in a drunken fall down some icy stairs on his way to the forge and spent a fraction of his allotted time in bowels of the 7th hell witnessing the aftermath of the She Wolf’s deflowering and then been mistakenly transported to the 7th heaven on the arm of Sansa fucking Stark. That was the most likely explanation given the evidence at hand. “This is starting to feel like the Smith’s story where the Red Woman lead him on with lurid promises right before she tied him down and sprinkled leeches on his cock. You don’t need the facial scar of a burned man to work some spell on the White Walkers, do you Little Bird? You don’t have to tie me down. All you ever had to do was ask.” _Now why the fuck did I say that? Because you’re drunk, asshole. Or you’re dead. Either way enjoy it._  
Sansa turned her face to him and smiled sadly. “I know that now.”  
They were quiet for a while as they came to inhabited parts of the castle. There were more people out and about than Sandor would have thought. Many (Free Folk and Northmen) were drunk. Some (Vale Knights and Unsullied) were attending to equipment. Still others (Dothraki and assorted) were fucking. They passed two such amorous couples in darkened hallways and a third that might have actually been a threesome, but Sandor was not about to let go of Sansa, who had basically tucked herself into him, to investigate. Instead, he let her lead him along by his left arm, his right grasping his new sword. They passed one room that seemed filled with an assortment of folks holed up drinking and telling stories. An old song echoed down the hallway after them and Sansa began to sing it softly to herself, “She danced with her ghosts…the ones she had found,” and did a pretty little twirl under his arm her deep blue skirts furling out gently to brush against the leg of his breeches.  
If they saw and heard quite a bit, they were also seen. Sansa stopped to talk to Lord Royce who was gathered with several of his knights checking over their armor. They discussed delivery of a package to Sansa’s rooms before dawn. Royce gave Sandor a long hard look which Sandor returned blithely. He had no fucking clue what was going on, but for once in his miserable scarred life he didn’t care. Sandor was going to die tomorrow, so it didn’t really matter. Or maybe he was already dead in which case it also did not matter.  
Suddenly, for it seemed sudden to Sandor because once they were moving through less crowded parts of the castle, he had abandoned all pretense and was simply staring at Sansa, drinking in her beauty so that he would have something think about when some undead bugger was eating his entrails, they stopped in front of a door. “You really do think I’m pretty, don’t you?” Sansa asked, turning to face him. _Perhaps this is just a hell of a different sort,_ Sandor thought as he began to see where this line of questioning might lead. He was shite with words.  
“Everybody does, Little Bird,” he hedged, though it was not a lie.  
“I’m not interested in ‘everybody.’ I’m interested in you,” she stated baldly.  
“Yes, I’ve got eyes. I think you’re fucking beautiful,” Sandor grumbled.  
“Don’t get grumpy. Arya told me that you used to go on about ‘your pretty sister this and your pretty sister that’ while you were traveling with her. She teased me mercilessly about it once we became friends again. She figured you were sweet on me. I told her that was ridiculous because you thought I was a stu-“ When Sansa first began talking Sandor was sure he was in hell the way a man in his first melee thinks it’s hot at midday. Little does that man know the heat of an hour or two before sunset when the armor has had time to roast him like a chicken in the stew of his own sweat. By the time the Little Bird was finishing her sentence, Sandor was at his boiling point. He dropped Sansa's arm to cover her lips with is fingers.  
“Don’t,” he begged. “Throw any of my words back at me from that time, but not those. I can’t bear to hear you say that about yourself. I am so fucking sorry I said it.”  
Sansa’s slender white hands folded around his big hairy paw but she made no move to push him away. She looked up at him and he could swear that heavenly gaze was rifling through his soul. Sandor did not look away, though he was very much afraid of what she’d see. After a long moment he felt her lips purse and there was a soft, wet, little sound as she planted a kiss on the pads of the two fingers he’d laid across her lips. Sandor felt something tear lose in his chest. He was gripped by a need to be inside, behind a closed door that had almost nothing to do with his stiff cock. “Little Bird, where are we?” he asked in a thick voice.  
“Someplace you can sharpen your sword,” she answered opening the door and leading him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you all think? Do you want more? Do you think the good ship SanSan is getting slighted or was this pretty much what you expected? Feel free to comment on anything show related.


	3. Past Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Sandor settle some things between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this seems like the longest night ever but there is a lot of stuff that needs to be addressed.

Sandor lurched through the door uncaring where he ended up, just needing a place to catch his breath and get his shit together. _What is it about the Stark sisters that has me bawling like a bloody child?_ He swiped at his eyes and took several deep breaths. Vision cleared, he realized he was in Sansa's room. Her scent hung heavy in the air, and there were clothes in various states of construction strewn all about. He remembered she had not been very tidy at the Red Keep either. Suddenly Sandor was feeling very sober again. _Pretending that nothing matters because you are going to die soon is for fools in hallways. You’re in her room now, and you need to bloody well get your shit together before you end up holding this sword she had made for you at her throat like you did the last time._ In an abundance of caution, Sandor stood the sword up against the wall.  
“Let me clear some things away so you’ll have a place to work,” Sansa said as she swayed into motion clearing off a chair by the hearth. Her voice sounded high and tight, and Sandor didn’t like the edge to it.  
_She’s having second thoughts about whatever she had planned._ “I’ve got what I need in my room. I’ll go.” Sandor turned toward the door.  
“Oh no.” Sansa darted in front of him her face a mask of dismay. She put her hands on his chest as if she could stop him from leaving or doing anything else he pleased. “I’m afraid I’m not any good at this. I’m not as bold as Arya.”  
“Bold enough to bring a man to your room,” Sandor said gruffly, looking down at where they were connected.  
“I know you won’t hurt me."  
“Didn’t do much to help either."  
Sansa put her hand up to his scarred face. “You did everything you could, including respecting my wishes, and letting me make my own mistakes, so don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened to me. That’s mine and claiming it as such has helped me grow.” As if to demonstrate Sansa popped up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Sandor stood frozen, his lips on fire. He wanted to bury himself in her in all the ways he knew how, but he was afraid of her, of the things she was making him feel. She was fire made human, there to burn away all of his defenses even the ones that protected her from him. And so, he did what felt safest for everyone, nothing. Then it was over. She pulled away, the color in her cheeks was high. Her coppery lashes swept down hiding her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have asked. I thought…well, I wanted to be the one to kiss someone, just once. I thought it would be alright…”  
Her words weren’t making sense to him, and he hated being denied the light of her eyes even when it felt like they saw too much. Sandor slipped the fingers that had been over her lips under her chin and as carefully as he could and tilted her face up as he ducked down, hoping to catch her gaze. “What are you chirping about?”  
“I kissed you, and you just stood there…like I did when Petyr would kiss me. I feel terrible that I did something like that. Something that you didn’t like. After all the times…” The hand that wasn’t touching her cracked into a balled fist that Sandor wished was around Littlefucker’s throat. Even if he was just a rotting corpse by now it would still feel satisfying to pinch the whoreson's head off.  
“Something I didn’t like? That’s probably the best thing that’s ever fucking happened to me. Stranger’s balls woman, I just don’t know what the hells to do about it.”  
“I don’t know either." Sansa said her eyes lighting up with a relieved smile. "I’m afraid I’m going to die tomorrow with so many things left undone. I just…I didn’t want to be alone so...” That was something that Sandor understood in his bones having always paid for companionship. Fear had once driven him to her rooms on a green fire night, driven him to the only person who had ever shown him compassion.  
Thinking of the many times he heard Maester’s say to apply pressure to a wound, Sandor reached out and dragged Sansa to him, wrapping his arms around her. “I don’t expect anything from you, Sansa. You don’t need to trade your kisses for protection or company. Tell me where to be and what to do, and consider it done.”  
She smiled tremulously up at him. “I knew I’d be safe with you," she said pressing a kiss to the burned corner of his mouth. "Now put the edge on your blade, so you’ll be safe tomorrow. In spite of rumors to the contrary, I care quite a bit about what happens to you.” Sandor gave her one more little squeeze to mirror the big squeeze her words engendered in his chest. He was shite with words so this would have to do. 

Sansa watched Sandor sharpening the sword in long, brisk strokes. She was mesmerized by the play of his muscles as he worked the steel. Sansa had poured them both a glass of wine and made sure he was comfortable in one of the two chairs by the fire. Sandor had given her a hard stare when she'd asked if that was what he preferred, but he growled that he needed the light so of course he'd sit by the fire. Then he'd rolled up his sleeves, tied back his hair, and sat down to work. Gazing at him now, seemingly lost in the repetitive act, Sansa was enthralled by the way he radiated strength and efficiency. She swallowed when she realized saliva had filled her mouth. _How long have I just been staring,_ she wondered and searched around for something to do.  
“Is there anything else you need?” She asked softly so as not to startle him. His steely eyes flicked to hers immediately. _Did he know I was watching him?_ She blushed as her fingers grazed her bottom lip in case she’d done the unthinkable and actually drooled. His eyes tracked that too.  
“Might need to go to the stables for some leather to wrap this hilt; bindings rotted away. I wonder where the Smith found it.”  
“King’s Landing,” Sansa informed him as she rose and moved across the room to a table piled high with her projects. “This goes with it.” Sandor laid aside the sword to follow her. She was pleased by the intake of breath from right behind her.  
“That’s Lord Starks scabbard,” Sandor’s steel on granite voice rasped. He moved past her toward the table to run large blunt fingers over the leather that at first glance looked smooth, but was actually tooled with a pattern of wolves rubbed faint by time.  
Sansa nodded. “My mother had it made for his name day when I was a child.” Sansa found that a smile came to her lips even as a tear pricked at her lids. “I noticed that you no longer have a sword belt, so I had this one made for you.” She brought forth a fine dark belt with yellow hounds worked into the leather. “I had the tanner send up the scraps because I knew something needed to be done with that hilt though I knew not what.”  
Sandor ran a big tanned hand through his beard his expression charged but unreadable. Sansa hoped she’d done the right by making this gift personal, but she knew Sandor had a complicated relationship with is past and his house. _Maybe I have erred. I tried to be thoughtful, and that is what matters. Nobody gets it right all the time,_ she reminded herself gently. _And often we learn more from out failures than our triumphs._ That last thought made her a little queasy. Sansa did not want to assess Sandor as a tool, but the habit was deeply ingrained and she could not fully stop herself.  
“And that’s the hilt to Ice?” he rasped bringing her back in to the moment.  
“It is,” she replied.  
“How in the hells did you manage this, Little Bird?”  
“Tyrion sent the scabbard home with Father’s bones, and Gendry brought the hilt back North with him. From the information he could gather along the Street of Steel, the hilt had been hanging in Tobho Mott’s shop since Lord Tywin had Ice melted down into two swords. Gendry recognized it when he came back to smith for Mott after being held prisoner on Dragonstone and asked around. He took it with him when he left. He tried to give it to Arya, but she told him to put it on this sword.”  
Sandor made a sound like the lid being scraped off a tomb and Sansa realized it was a laugh, not his mean, barking laugh, but a real one. “Nice to know I won’t take a needle to the heart the first time she sees it.” he said turning to Sansa with an honest to gods smile on his face. It was gruesome to be sure, but it ignited an answering smile on Sansa’s face that felt like a Spring thaw. She had no idea how long that went on before something else on the table caught his eye. “What’s this,” he asked, fingering a length of dark gray cloth with a dire wolf picked out in little bits of obsidian that she’d had swept out of the carts that carried the precious stone into Winterfell. When Gendry told her what could be made from the sweepings Sansa had offered to give him what she’d garnered from the carts, but he said he had enough for the test project.  
Sansa felt like the bottom had just dropped out of her world at Sandor’s question. She had not meant for him to see this…yet. _This is probably the only time he will see it, now,_ she chided herself. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth. “It was your King’s Guard Cloak.” Sansa was surprised by her words for they were not what she had planned to say, but they were true words none the less.  
He went very still. Only his lips moved. “You kept it.”  
“It made me feel safe, and then...” Sansa had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. _He faced his big emotions. I can too._  
“And then?” Sandor's voice was the softest she'd ever heard it. His eyes glittered with heat, but she did not think it was a return of the old rage. Whatever the feeling it was fierce and secret. Sansa’s heart skipped several beats.  
“And then it made me feel powerful,” she felt a rush of exhilaration heat her cheeks as she remembered gliding down the stairs of the Eyrie, cloak freshly dyed to go with her freshly dyed hair, believing all the lies Petyr told her. That intoxicating illusion of freedom spurring her on to disaster. “There came a time when it was a reason I didn’t throw myself out a tower window.” Sansa felt cold to her marrow as she recalled covering herself in the fading gray cloak at night once Ramsy was done with her and crying bitterly trying to remind herself that not every person on this earth wanted to use her. “I drew courage from it so that I could fly down off the walls of Winterfell and escape Ramsy.” Sansa felt that swoop in her stomach again as winter snow rushed up to meet her saving her from dashing against the cold ground. She did not bother to check the flow of tears as she spoke.  
Suddenly she was swallowed up by another hug. Sansa felt light points of pressure on her head and couldn’t help but laugh though her trauma into his rough spun tunic. _Instead of ranting and blaming himself, he is kissing my hair,_ she thought as she turned her head up to see if he’d kiss her face as well. When his lips met skin instead of hair, he stilled again. “Keep kissing me,” she whispered. True to his word he did. It was clumsy and very wet, and his kisses had an odd scraping quality lent by the burned side of his mouth, but he kissed his way down. Sansa parted her lips for him. Their mouths slipped over each other for a while, Sansa soon relishing the scrape of his scar across her lips as a constant reminder she was with Sandor instead of the horrors form her past that her mind tried to present her with. Sansa thought that was all she would have to do, to get the ball rolling, but his words from before came back to her. _Tell me what to do._ It had never occurred to her that Sandor, who had always seemed to be all about taking, would give her the lead. _So many things are not as they first appear. Though he barked and snarled to hide it, he has always been following my lead._ The thought made her feel powerful. This power didn’t come from a hollow illusion though. Sandor wouldn’t lie to her…as the rest of that conversation came back to her though Sansa sobered and pulled away from the kiss. _I don't want him to die for me either._ She was gasping, and his breath was ragged. “Maybe you’d better finish the sword.”  
He let out a string of foul language aimed mostly at smiths that didn’t finish their work as he chose a piece of leather from the scraps littering the table around the scabbard. Sansa selected a bit of needle work to take to the second chair chair by the fire so that she’d have something to do while Sandor worked. After that kiss, she needed something soothing to calm her and keep her from devouring him with her eyes.  
They resettled in the chairs by the fire. After a moments of silence he asked, “Will you sing for me Little Bird?”  
Sansa smiled. “I will but I’m afraid I don’t know any ‘fuck songs.’” She lowered the pitch of her voice as she quoted his words to Arya from earlier and then broke into giggles, hoping to make him laugh again. When he didn’t, she looked over to find his face ruddy and scowling as he increased the pace of sharpening. “What?” she asked. “Are you blushing?” He growled. “Was that a maybe?" Grumble. "Is it because I said fuck? I was just repeating words that you taught me.” More grumbling. Sansa sobered. “We’re telling each other things now, right?”  
“Aye.” Sandor grunted. Then he was quiet. For a while the scrape of stone on steel and the crackling fire was all the sound in the world. There was a time when Sansa would have tried to fill that silence, but now she plied her needle waiting for him to find his words. “You reminded me that this is the only time I’ve asked you to sing without…a…lude meaning, then you go and throw my words from just earlier tonight back at me. It makes me think maybe I haven’t changed as much as I’d hoped." He heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. "Known for a while that I’m the reason for most of my own trouble. Thought I was better, but here I am drunk and cussing at girls again.”  
Sansa set aside her work and turned to him. “First of all, neither Arya nor I are girls anymore. But more importantly you have changed.” She touched his shoulder so that his eyes came to rest on hers. “Your eyes no longer burn with rage. I see you Sandor Clegane. I know you tried to hide the damaged boy who was hurt so badly because he dreamed of being a knight." His face screwed up, and he tore his eyes from her. Sansa continued. This was something that she could not leave unsaid. "I know those wounds reopened with each atrocity your knightly brother committed. The same thing happened to me every time I expected the world to be like a story and it wasn’t. And I know you tried to save me from my own expectations, but you couldn't. No one can.”  
He sat hunched for several long moments taking deep breaths. "And here all this time I thought your chirping was bad. Someone's taught you how to wield words to kill. Reminds me of a man I met down South. His flock called him Elder Brother. The man could tear me open with a question that let all the pain spill out." His face twisted again, but Sansa could tell this was a smile.  
She smiled back and laid a hand on his knee. "I am so glad you found someone you could talk to." A few silent moments passed and she remembered a point she wanted to press. “And what lude meaning could asking for a song have?”  
Sandor favored her with another long, hungry look and then said, “Sing now while I’m working, I’ll explain later.”  
“All right, but I’m going to hold you to it,” Sansa vowed. Then she sang as she sewed and he scraped. She sang of Jonquil and Florian and a children’s song about Bran, the Builder that old Nan had taught her. She sang the Bear and Maiden Fair and the King took off His Kirtle the Queen took off her Shoe, as he bound the hilt in leather.  
“Well that’s as good as I can make her tonight, but I think she’ll do.” Sandor held the sword out so it gleamed in the fire light.  
A thrill that she couldn’t explain spilled down Sansa’s spine. The pride and satisfaction in Sandor’s voice strummed something in her, and she wanted to investigate that feeling. She passed her sewing beneath the blade needle held high. The thread parted as soon as it brushed the blade. Sandor clutched the sword to himself mostly mock glaring at her and taking the whetstone immediately to the exact place where the thread and edge met. Sansa laughed and got up to put her work away. She did not miss Sandor’s eyes following her to the table, and she relished the heat of his gaze. While at the table she picked up her father’s scabbard and returned with it.  
Sandor was still admiring the sword. Sansa joined him. “I bet my brothers could have traced every curve and ripple in Ice. They used to bicker over whose turn it was to clean it.”  
“That’s a mighty big responsibility for a lad.” Sandor said uncuffing his sleeve and buffing the blade to a high shine.  
“And my father treated it as such. Rickon wasn’t allowed to yet, but Bran had done it a couple of times. I’m sure Arya wanted to, but she never asked that I knew of.”  
“Probably did it while no one was watching.” His voice grated with laughter.  
“Thank you for looking after her, in the River Lands. She told me that you stopped her from running into the Twins and dying with Mother and Robb.”  
“Almost let her. She was such an annoying little shit. Kept trying to kill me. Prayed every night. Thought you’d want me to save her, though. Gods what an asshole I was.”  
Sansa laughed. “Arya could try the patience of a Septa, and there were times in our life where I might have let her die too.” Sandor gave her a sharp look, his keen gaze searching for the lie. Sansa met it steadily. “It wasn’t even that long ago. Petyr almost succeeded in turning us on each other. He is the one that taught me how to wield words.”  
Sandor's brow slanted toward his nose. “Littlefucker was a wily bugger, Little Bird. He’s been the end of many a grown man. Held that dagger your sister’s got strapped to her belt at your Da’s throat in the Throne room after telling Stark the Gold Cloaks were his." Sandor turned stormy eyes full of regret on Sansa.  
"You were a different man, then. I betrayed him too." They shared a moment of deep regret.  
Sandor cleared his throat with a sound like someone scraping out a pit in one of the seven hells. "Talk around the castle is, you three Stark pups beat Baelish at his own game; you avenged your parents.”  
Sansa could not help the smile that bloomed at his words. She reached out, and Sandor cradled the sword against him. “I know how sharp it is. If I leave a print you can wipe it right off,” she purred as she ran the nail of her index finger slowly up the middle runnel to the hilt. “It’s a different color, you know. This blade and Ice. This one is much darker.” The contact between her nail and the blade made the faintest rasp. Being able to hear the sound alerted Sansa to the fact that Sandor had stopped breathing. His gaze was hot and heavy on her, and Sansa liked it.  
She held the sheath out to him, and he slid the blade home, not ungently. “Gods that fits like a dream,” Sandor breathed as he released his hold on the hilt.  
“It should,” Sansa informed him. “Gendry used the measurements from the scabbard to make the sword.” The item in question was heavy, but with two hands Sansa’s was equal to carrying it to her bed. She put the sword in the middle of the giant mattress and laid down on one side, all under the weight of Sandor’s gaze. Sansa patted the coverlet on the other side of the sword and Sandor was there in an instant toeing off his boots. “We don’t need the sword Little Bird. I can keep my hands to myself.”  
“I don’t know if I can.” Sansa said through trembling breath. Her hands itched to get under his shirt. She wanted to see other bigger muscles at play beneath his skin.  
He swallowed audibly. “If you’re worried about my virtue, I’m afraid it’s a lost cause,” he grated.  
“Mine too,” she said sadly. “But I’m not worried about that tonight.” He raised one questioning brow. “I don’t want to…do…this just because there is no reason not to…”  
He studied her for a long time and very deliberately crossed his heavily muscled arms behind his head and closed his eyes. “I'll be right here if you change your mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you all think? Are you sad there is no smut?  
> Any ideas what Sansa was going to say when Sandor asked her what the cloak was?


	4. Darkest Before Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of Sansa's plans unfold and Sandor is not best pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys this is a short one, but I cried as I was writing it. I ain't gonna lie Sandor is pissed and the language gets intense. if that is not your thing there is a quick recap in the end notes.

Sandor dreamt that he was floating on a cloud of lemon and lavender. This dream was not altogether unfamiliar, but this time it had music, and that was strange. It’s not that he never dreamed of Sansa singing, but whenever he did it was lurid green, and fear coated.  
“Gentle mother font of mercy…”  
This dream was all gray. The only fire was her hair tumbling all around him tickling his neck and face. Sansa was soft beneath him, her fingernails skimming over his back. He growled his pleasure at both feelings and burrowed his head against her teats. The only discomfort in all existence something hard pressed against his knee and hip and the emptiness of his hands. _Easy fix for that bit._ He filled his hand with a soft breast, thrilled by how the nipple hardened instantly but saddened that the song ended in a chirping little trill.  
Sandor blinked opened his eyes to find a very real Sansa peering up at him. Her big blue eyes were wide open, pupils blown. Her mouth was forming words, “Welcome back, sleepy head.”  
Sandor gave said head a little shake, but things stayed pretty much the same, though he now noticed that Sansa was naked. He spent the next several moments noticing that when the door was flung wide, with a cheerful “My lady, you have a package.”  
“Yes, I know,” Sansa said, arching against him, a smirk in her voice, though Sandor had not been able to bring his eyes back up to her face to tell if there was one on her lips.  
“What in the seven hells,” at another time Sandor might have been amused to hear the Big Bitch curse for the first time. Or even find it interesting that they’d chosen the same phrase, but not today. He registered what was making his knee ache and pushed Sansa behind him as he drew his new sword and rolled up on his knees just in time to block Brienne’s downward cut.  
“Stop!” Sansa’s voice rang out, and Sandor froze. Brienne sank to her knees which revealed a pair of slack-jawed Lannister brothers in the doorway of Sansa’s room. With the threat neutralized Sandor could begin to take stock of important things like the fact that Sansa was just now calmly pulling closed a very conveniently placed robe. He was also wearing clothes though short of plate armor nothing could disguise his raging hard-on. He adjusted his breeches, so the head of his cock was no longer poking out of the waist band. Sansa’s voice sounded again, cool as you please, “If you’ll excuse us, Lord Tyrion, Ser Jaime. I will be with you in a moment.”  
“Take all the time you need, My Lady,” Tyrion said. The little bugger's voice oozed with undertones that Sandor could not fathom and that pissed him off. The half man reached out and closed the door.  
“La-I apologize Ser Brienne,” Sandor snorted, but upon receiving freezing looks from 4 icy blue eyes he sheathed his sword and sat down on the edge of the bed to put his boots on “in the future, I would appreciate it if you would not swing at Sandor, unless directed to do so.”  
“My Lady I thought-“  
“I know what you thought, but that’s not what happened, and it will never be what happened,” Sansa assured her shield before turning a warm gooey smile on him. He wished, not for the first time that he had her faith in himself. _What the bloody fuck happened last night?_ “Now will you please bring in the package and then leave us.”  
“My lady I don’t-“  
“Brienne, time is short. He’s been here for three hours. Whatever has happened, has happened. You may wait outside the door if you are that worried about it.”  
“Yes, my lady.”  
Sandor spent their exchange gathering up his belt from the craft table and working the stiff new leather through the old leather of the scabbard his mind turning over the events of last night. Brienne was closing the door after leaving a lumpy package on Sansa’s bed when the gray cloak caught his eye. The obsidian winking in the firelight started the gears turning in his head. He felt like whatever large stone Sansa had rolled away from his chest last night came plummeting off the highest tower at Winterfell to land right on his fucking head. “Was any of it real?” he snarled, his voice low and ugly.  
Sansa turned from where she had been buttering a roll. _When the fuck did food get here?_ The pleasant smile that had been quirking her lips melted. The lovely flush faded from her cheeks and she took a step back. He must be a sight, but he did not care. This is what he’d been protecting himself from his whole miserable life. He let his guard down for one fucking night and here he was in his worst nightmare. “Sandor-“  
“Don’t fucking say my name like that unless you mean it.” Things that he had missed last night because he was drunk and wanted to believe in something were starting to come together.  
“I meant every word I said.” Sansa’s voice was steel.  
“What about the words you didn’t say? Don’t you think I know a fucking bridal cloak when I see one?” _Liar,_ he berated himself viciously. _You were too caught up in the idea of being the hero to see anything but your pretty white cloak dyed Stark gray!_ “Just because no one would ever wed me doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the custom.” _Of course, I fucking know what it meant to drop my cloak over your shoulders. Up til kissing you it was the highlight of my gods-damned pathetic life._ “Who does she want you to marry?”  
“I’m not sure, but I think she has one of the Lannisters in mind. Probably whichever one survives the battle.” Sansa’s face was bone white, and her features were stiff. Sandor tried to tell himself he didn’t give a fuck.  
He snorted. “I pity the fucking Tarth Bitch if she has to stand outside your door at night guarding you and her golden knight. Maybe she and I can arm wrestle for the night shift. Wouldn’t that be a fucking laugh riot.”  
“Preventing that was rather the point of this morning.”  
“Oh right because we are still playing at Knights and Ladies. She has gods damned dragons! If she tells him to wed you and bed you, he’ll do it even if he found my cock down your throat.”  
“Sandor, you don’t understand-“  
“And who’s fucking fault is that? Didn’t want to share your big plans with the Lannister dog?”  
“I was going to tell you, but you fell asleep,” her voice was soft and fragile now. He could barely hear it over his own rage breathing.  
“Horseshit,” he spat.  
“I tried to wake you up early, but it took so long for you to come around-“  
“Fuck that!” she was starting to make sense, and he was scared to feel. He needed to flee. “Give me my orders so that I can most effectively test your precious sword.”  
Sansa’s eyes filled and spilled, and Sandor bit the inside of his cheek until it bled to keep from pressing himself against her. “Podrick should be on his way to help you don your armor-“  
“Leather?”  
“It’s what you wear now.”  
“The Smith can do it. Is there anything else?” Sandor feared that she would make another emotional plea, but instead, she turned to face him with the same dead eyes she had for her father’s head.  
“Don’t die.”

About the time that Sandor was storming up the corridor on his way to the forge the reality of what he’d just done set in. He’d puked in the yard, twice. He felt hollow and empty, and he gave zero shits if he died, but he had his orders.  
He almost smeared Arya up against the wall. She must have heard him coming because when he rounded the corner, she had flattened herself against the floor and then whirled up around him. “Will you watch out for him today?” she asked from behind him.  
Sandor had just about had it with the Stark sisters and their commands. He rounded on her, but was arrested by her solemn gray eyes. He just couldn’t bring himself to lay into her. Sansa and Arya looked nothing alike, but there was a quality about them, a starkness. “If you’ll look after your pretty sister.”  
Instead of saying yes, she smirked and said, “Nice belt.”

“Rise and shine pretty boy!” Sandor barked as he prowled into the forge. Gendry was emerging from a back room scratching his belly and looking around hopefully. “She’s gone. Time to get your fucking armor on.” Sandor said tearing into the paper covering of his last gift from Sansa.  
“You’re even more of an asshole below the wall than above it.” Gendry observed as he began opening his own package.  
“Fuck you.” Sandor replied as he began donning the best fitting armor he’d ever owned.  
“You know for a man with all new gear; you are certainly in a foul mood,” Gendry said with a knowing grin on his pretty face.  
“Getting your dick yanked will do that.”  
Gendry's smile slid off and he gave Sandor a long hard stare. “I would say ‘quit your whinging,’ but that would make me sound like a big dumb cunt.”  
“Noted.” Sandor received the Smith’s angry scowl and understood the younger man’s meaning perfectly. The kid had been through much worse at the hands of the Red Woman. Sansa, for all her conniving, had not actually done anything to him physically, that he did not want. If he was honest with himself, he was more than a little disappointed by that. _It’s just your pride that’s wounded, dog. Sure, they’re going to laugh behind your back at how you thought the lady of the castle wanted anything besides your low reputation to shield her from an unwanted marriage, but you are still a scary mother fucker, so no one will do it to your ugly face._ Sandor broke eye contact with Gendry and shook his head, trying physically to knock the distracting thoughts to the back of his thick skull. Then he fixed his eyes on the Smith again. “Turn around and let me see to your straps, boy. I promised that She Bitch I wouldn’t let you die today.”  
***This is why Gendry and Sandor are the last besides Sam to show up to the battle lines.***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a quick recap incase you found the chapter too intense to read because Sandor was very yelly.  
> So Sandor got his emotional intimacy cherry popped in the last chapter and he's a bit ragged about it when he wakes up from a nap. But it was a good nap. Like a "where am?" good nap. Then Brienne walks in and assumes he's a rapist and takes a swing at him. Sansa calls her off and that's when he learns there has been a Lannister audience the whole time. His brain is starting to work now and he realizes just how much planning it took on Sansa's part to make last night happen. But he's not seeing it as a romantic gesture, but as a set up. To be real it was both. Welcome to the new Sansa folks she doesn't do anything for just one reason. Anyway Sandor makes some assumptions and is unwilling to hear Sansa through his hurt so he takes his shit show on the road.  
> Sandor is feeling shaky and remorseful once he meets Arya. We can see by his promise to watch Gendry if she'll watch Sansa that he still cares for Sansa.  
> Gendry gives him perspective on his encounter with Sansa, but Sandor's still hurting.  
> Next chapter will assume show canon until the crypts. It is just not a good idea to put your squishies in a body a cave when there is a necromancer coming to town. Don't worry Mama's gonna fix it.   
> What did you like? What didn't you like? Feel free to use the comment section to bitch about lack of on screen SanSan. We all need this safe space.


	5. Crypt Fix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's rough. I pushed myself to get it up before the new episode airs. I know none of you will have time to read it before whatever happens tonight happen, but I just wanted to get it posted. I promise to come back an italicize thoughts and all that jazz tomorrow.

Brienne took up guard posture outside the door to Sansa’s rooms as soon as Tyrion closed the thick iron-bound door. Jaime and Tyrion were a little way down the hall talking quietly. Though Brienne was listening intently for any indication from within that she might be needed; she kept snagging Jaime’s eye. They’d come to a point in their association where they'd stopped looking away from each other when this happened and were now just staring openly. Brienne had no idea what came next, but she was both intrigued and terrified.  
Tyrion had just caught them at it again and begun politely clearing his throat when a roar issued from the other side of the door. Brienne turned drawing her sword and pressed down on the latch. As soon as there was room for intelligible words to leak around the oaken corner Sandor’s seething bellow could be heard up and down the hallway. “I pity the fucking Tarth Bitch if she has to stand outside your door at night guarding you and her golden knight. Maybe she and I can arm wrestle for the night shift. Wouldn’t that be a fucking laugh riot?”  
Brienne jerked back with a gasp and closed the door on whatever Sansa’s reply was. For the first time in her life, her duty was overwhelmed by something else: abject mortification. She fled blindly.  
Dimly, she heard Jaime call her name, but she did not slow down until she found herself in Winterfell’s deserted library. She collapsed into the first chair she came across, which sat beside a cold hearth and began to heave great baleful sobs. Clegane had given voice to her greatest fear in front of the person she needed to be perfect for. At least she had made it out of the hallway before the tears fell.  
“Brienne,” his voice was hesitant and husky and worst of all, right outside the door. Brienne dug her palms into her eyes as if there was some way to physically stem the flow of her tears. She sniffed mightily and let her breath out shakily.  
“I require a moment Jaime,” she said, proud that she had not lost the knack of speaking as if she had not just been weeping. This talent garnered as an ugly awkward child had stood her in good stead many a time.  
“I require one as well, with you,” he said his voice growing more clear as he opened the door.  
When Brienne removed her hands from her eyes he was striding toward her. “I don’t want to-“  
“Talk about that asshole Sandor Clegane? Good me neither. What I do want to talk about is me. Novel I know coming from a Lannister, but I have to tell you, I don’t care who Daenerys wants me to wed.” To Brienne’s utter astonishment he hit his knees in front of her. “There is only one woman I would consider spending the rest of my life taking orders from.”  
“Jaime, what are you saying?”  
“I’m saying that while Sansa has earned her right to be paranoid about being forced to wed a Lannister, it will not be this Lannister.” Brienne flinched as his left hand touched her face but turned toward his right one instead. The chill of the metal helped ground her. Jaime smiled his lovely smile. “If ever there was a woman for me, it is you.”  
Brienne thought he would kiss her, but he stopped a blade’s width away. _He made me his equal. In all likelihood, there won’t be a tomorrow for him to gloat if this is all some sort of prank._  
As with everything once Brienne decided to do something she threw her whole self at it. She pushed up out of the chair and into Jaime who was not quite prepared for all her weight. The clang of their armor coming together heralded their first kiss as they went down to the stone floor in a scraping tangle of steel clad limbs and swords. This was not Brienne’s first kiss, but nothing could have prepared her for the hot rush of feeling flooding through her from all points of contact with Jaime. She wanted to buck up against him. Pin him to the floor. Squeeze him with her thighs and about a hundred other things that she had no way to name.  
Suddenly his mouth was gone from hers. “Brienne,” he said fighting for breath. Her eyes fluttered open and she tried to focus on him. “As much as I hate to be the voice of reason, and I have never hated it more than I do at this moment, we do not have time for this.” Her heart fell. His cold metal hand at her cheek seemed like the only thing keeping her from melting with shame through the flagstones along with her tears. “Hey, none of that. This a reason to live, to see what comes next.”  
Brienne bounced her head up and down as she suck several deep breaths in through her nose and pushed them out of her mouth to bring her racing heart back under control. His chill hand recalled her duty to her, and she felt all the stronger for it. “Until after the battle then." She grinned freely at him. He smiled back. Brienne put her arm out and Jaime clasped it. They heaved each other to their feet and set out to be part of the battle for the dawn.

As they walked down the corridor close enough that their swords almost touched it was as if Ice was whole again.

 

“Stick them with the pointy end,” Sansa said with a smile that she didn’t feel, but forced into her eyes none the less as she gave the last child over four a dragon glass dagger down in crypts of Winterfell. Sansa was not pleased to be housed with the dead of her house, but she had not been invited to the war council where such things were decided. Once informed where the women and children would wait out the battle she could not, in good conscience remain separate from them. Even Cersei knew that. And Sansa was determined to be better at this than Cersei. _Putting your people first, is what it means to be a leader,_ she told herself as she sat at the feet of her father’s statue.  
She peered up at him, but from this vantage point, Sansa could not see the face the sculptor had given her father. It did not really look like him. How could stone replace the mobile features of a man that had truly loved her? _Was Cersei right? Is the only love in this world the love of a parent for their child?_ Then Sansa was reminded of her parents regard for each other. She could hear her father's voice in her mind. “Someone who is brave, and gentle, and strong," he’d said as if he thought such a thing existed. And she’d just thrown his words in his face, tipping him off to the truth that had killed him. She’d replayed the scene in her mind a thousand times, and she was sure that was the moment he’d realized that King Robert’s children were really Jaime’s bastards. _And now Jaime might be my next husband,_ Sansa thought bitterly. She tried to picture the golden lion objectively for a moment, aside from all that she knew of his past. He didn’t really answer any of her father’s criteria. Or at least not to her. She had seen him be very gentle with Brienne’s feelings. And Sansa supposed it took a certain amount of bravery to come North and prostrate one’s self before one’s enemies. Further she supposed he was strong, as all knights must be. She heaved a great sigh and resolutely refused to think of the person who usually came to mind when she thought of strength. That person was furious at her, and though he had every right to be.  
_How could I have been so stupid! I should have told him what I was up to the moment we were behind a closed door. It's just that we were having so much fun._ Sansa laughed ruefully at herself, or what passes for fun on the eve of a battle that you are the trophy for.  
“I don't I've ever seen someone look so lovely and so sad while mocking herself with bitter laughter. Penny for your thoughts?” His rich cultured voice wound its way into her thoughts. She took his sarcasm to mean that Tyrion thought she couldn't possibly have anything to be worried about tucked safely in the crypts and that implication annoyed the hell out of her.  
“No deal. But I will trade you a dragon glass dagger for a sip of that wine,” Sansa replied tartly.  
“Ah, so you did learn something at my sister's knee after all." That made Sansa want to plant the dagger in his eye. Just after Sandor left her rooms a wave of cramps heralded that she would be bleeding through another battle. She knew this added to her emotional state and did her best to keep her bloodier feelings on the inside. "My Lady you have only to ask for anything. If it is mine to give, you shall have it." He was giving her that hungry look from when they were married, and though Sansa now knew what it meant she still didn't know how to feed it. As if he read that in her eyes he changed the subject. "I am curious Lady Stark, why you are arming the children?”  
“This is a crypt,” answered Varys neatly insinuating himself into the conversation.  
“I raised the same argument,” Tyrion said glaring at the gelded man. "I was given some nonsense about a door that keep things where they belong. But I don't think they were really listening when I said we don't belong with the dead."  
“At least you were in the room,” Sansa drawled before taking a deep draw on the wine skin. “Just my luck, Dornish Red.”  
“Yes as it happens I found quite a large cask that was broached just last night. ‘So it would be fresh for mi’lady’ the lovely wench who handed me this flask said. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”  
Sansa favored her ex-husband with her chilliest stare. “Are you asking me if I used wine to stage a scene to avoid marrying or remarrying as the case may be, in my rooms this morning?” Varys tittered.  
“Certainly I would never ask any such thing,” Tyrion said lightly before turning the full effect of his mismatched gaze on her. “I’m asking you why you would go to such lengths to avoid marrying me?”  
Sansa was very tempted to make a quip about the length of Sandor Clegan, but Tyrion was so intent and so earnest that Sansa chose to tell him a different truth. “Because you’ve made the situation about you.” The look of shock on his face was so satisfying that Sansa took it a step further. “You make every situation about you. And while that is not something that is unique to you, but rather a plague upon your gender, it is never the less very tiresome, and I don't wish to be married to that trait ever again.”  
“Yes well, that puts me in my place doesn’t it."  
“Yes it does rather,” Varys said. “And as that place is a crypt with a necromancer on the way I’d say we are all about to die in it."  
"Actually I have a plan,” Sansa confided in the men as she took another sip of courage.  
"Oh do tell," Varys tittered. "This is not the time for secrets."  
"Do you see this sword?" Sansa asked touching the iron sword across her father’s lap.  
"Yes, it lovely, and taller than I am," Tyrion snapped taking back his wine skin. I hardly think it will make a good weapon even if I could pry it out of his cold dead hands."  
"The iron is supposed to keep him from rising," Sansa stated.  
"I seem to recall he had a paper shield once too," Tyrion said more than a little spitefully.  
Sansa smiled coldly at that quip. _My barb from earlier struck home. Good. An irritated, irritated opponent is an off-balanced opponent that can be more easily manipulated._ Sansa couldn't help the chill that coursed through her hearing that last thought in Petyr's smooth resonate voice. His words drifted back to her more vividly and more often than she'd like to admit. Also, it was part of her plan to appear to be the least amenable wife possible. _Never do anything for only one reason._ "I believe it will hold him. What you need to be worried about is that down that hall." she pointed down a dark unworked tunnel. Down there lay the ancient dead of house Stark, whose iron swords have rusted away. I did not have time to have iron swords re-forge for them. I do have the key to the gate to lock it though. If it appears the gate will not hold I would like you to take the women and children down the right path. We'll push Lyanna and Uncle Brandon’s statues over to block the corridor. Be ready as they may rise. No swords were crafted for them; we had forgotten the reasons for such things."  
"Forgive me for daring to ask my Lady, but what will you be doing?" Tyrion said as he took a drink from his recovered wine skin.  
"I will be leading the dead down the left-hand path," he spit the wine back in the flask.  
"Forgive me, My Lady, for questioning your plan, but it seems dangerous," he objected.  
"It is, but there are more gates that way so there is a chance I might survive."  
"And if they don’t hold?"  
"I will die. But I hope you will have had time to get the children out. Bran said he told you how to find the tunnel he escaped from."  
"He did but-"  
"This is how it is going to be," Sansa overrode his objection. She'd hoped that by being hateful she could avoid this conversation, but she supposed that she was never going to be as intimidating as the Hound.  
"I could go with you." Tyrion offered a desperate tinge to his voice that pricked at Sansa's eyelids. "Varys is very good at tunnels. Or better yet I could go instead.'  
"Yes, he could go himself," Varys echoed.  
A genuine smile graced Sansa’s lips. “You are indeed very brave. But," Sansa leaned very close as if saying what she had to say next quieter might somehow make it easier to hear "Tyrion the locks are set very high in the gates."  
One of his eyes glittered like obsidian the other was all wildfire. "I’ll climb," he seethed.  
Sansa pulled away from the intensity of his emotion. "There might not be time. This is my plan. This is the way it is going to be. Besides someone has to do the Dragon Queen's thinking."

Sandor wiped sweat out of his eyes. It seemed as if he'd been fighting back to back with Gendry for hours. The sword worked just as well as the dragon glass weapons in everyone else’s hand. Better as those sometimes shattered on the undead’s armor and then that person was fucked unless they could pick something up off the ground or pluck if from someone's dead hand.  
He'd begun swinging again when the retreat sounded. Sandor elbowed Gendry in the ribs. He'd fought alongside Robert in the Greyjoy rebellion, and he knew about the Baratheon tendency to lose themselves in a battle rage, so Sandor was ready for hammer swing aimed at his head. He caught the haft of the hammer and spit in Gendry’s face. The Smith's smooth, even features screwed up in disgust. “What the fuck was that for?”  
“To snap your ass out of a berserker rage. They're sounding the retreat.” He shoved the younger man roughly into a trot. Gendry cleared their way forward, and Sandor covered their retreat.  
Soon they were inside the wall and everyone was in a tizzy about lighting the moat. This was something all the soldiers had been warned about. Sandor had been dreading it. Fighting outside the gates with dragons raining fire down on undead not ten feet in front of him had not been pleasant, but being trapped inside the gates with the fire was sending him to that special hell. Sandor fought to stay himself. Keeping Gendry safe as an immediate goal helped.  
Not long after the undead stormed the walls, the tide of battle swept Gendry away from him. One minute the kid's battle cry of “Bull” was a constant irritating knell and the next the kid was nowhere to be seen. Sandor looked around for him, but all he found was a zombie on fire, but still coming. Sandor ended the flaming corpse, but his sleeve caught and for a moment memories of being beneath the Hollow Hill with his arm on fire swamped him. He could even hear Beric’s cunt voice.

Arya was fighting for her life, but it was exhilarating. The weapon Gendry had made for her was working exactly the way she’d imagined it. She was truly testing herself, and she loved it.  
A chance misstep had her half over a parapet and scrambling for purchase. She’d lost part of her weapon, but there were still plenty of undead left to kill. She pulled herself up and re-entered the fray.

“Tell her that,” Beric screamed at him.  
Sandor looked where the mad arse hole was gesturing to see Arya hanging precariously from a rooftop. Suddenly there was no fire in the world except the one behind his eyes. Sandor saw as clear as day what had to happen. Blinking his eyes open, he saw Arya disappear into a turret and used the mental map of Winterfell he’d been making since he got here to get to her. Sandor could hear Beric’s footsteps behind him. He didn’t even give Gendry a second thought.

As Arya dashed toward the closed door, she knew she was going to die. She was reeling and giddy from a head wound and leading an uncountable pack of undead. The seconds she would need to get the door open would be all the time they needed to tear her apart. _I have one chance._ Just before getting to the door, she slid into the same maneuver that she’d used to avoid Sandor this morning. Arya put her hands over her head and let the undead trample her as they slammed into the door with an unholy force.  
The door was fell away from her and Arya screamed. She felt hands grab her by the scruff of the neck and she was sure she was dead. They were warm and fleshy instead of dry and scratchy. Before she even had time to see who it was she was pitched down the hallway. Suddenly the familiar smell of a large body sweating out Dornish Sour engulfed her and she almost wept with relief even as she looked over Sandor’s shoulder to see Beric die by inches holding the corridor for their retreat.

Sansa was watching the children play on the creaky gate. She knew that she needed to go and lock it, but anything that kept them busy was a godsend in her eyes. Sansa laughed inwardly at her mind’s word choice. She did not believe in the gods old or new anymore. Funny then that the song she’d tried to wake Sandor up with had been the Mother’s Hymn. Or not so silly considering their history with that song she supposed before she remembered she was not supposed to be thinking of him.  
She’d done everything she knew to do to avoid thinking about him including verbal sparring with Tyrion and an all too real spat with Missandei. If it weren’t for the girls’ presence down here, Sansa would think the Dragon Queen wanted everyone in the crypts to be slaughtered by the undead. Sansa was just wondering how much Daenerys really cared for her lovely interpreter when the sound of battle echoed down the stairs.  
The children immediately went to their mothers leaving the gate to swing on its rusty hinges. The noises soon changed from that of battle to plaintive pleas that the doors be opened. That was the one advantage the crypts had, huge iron-bound weir wood doors that were said keep things in their proper place. Once sealed, only the key at Sansa's waist could unlock them.  
Soon enough the screams died down, and crypts were as silent as was their usual want. Even the children knew not to breath too loudly. There was a great impact above. A dragon hitting the ground, Sansa thought and sent an automatic prayer to the old gods that Jon was all right as dust poured out of the cracks in the ceiling. The gate swung open with a clang against the stone wall. And the scrabbling outside the door began all over again. _They can hear us_ Sansa thought caught somewhere between dread and a queer kind of elation.

Sandor barricaded the door as his friend died in the arms of someone who probably would have killed him given half a chance. _That fucker’s died enough times not to need my help. Moving furniture is something this big old body is good for, not death bed hand holding_.  
There were dead strewn all over but mostly piled hip deep around a big white door to the back of the room. Northmen by the look of their studded leather armor. Sandor had just begun to review what he’d heard about troop positioning when a woman’s voice sounded from the darkness. Sandor could make out lush curves even under voluminous robes, but it was the red hair that marked her for who she was. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, though he was pretty sure Arya would want to deal with this situation herself. To his utter shock, they started talking like old friends. _There is no accounting for women being able to put their shit aside and pull together. That is the only way any of them survive._  
While they chatted, his mind went back to the puzzle of what happened in this room. He recalled hearing that a group of Northmen would be held in reserve protecting the door to the crypts where the women and children would wait. Before the decision was even clearly made in his head, Sandor was wading through the bodies toward the door, praying as he had never done before. Stranger’s blessing the fucking thing was still intact. Sandor could see by the way the dead were piled against it.  
At first he thought his exhale of relief was so great that he’d caused one of the bodies to move. But then other, further bodies began to stir. A dread seized his heart as he was nearly consumed by the knowledge that if the bodies were stirring above they were sure as shit stirring below.  
Sandor reached for the latch on the door, but was seized by a firm hand. “You must go with the Little Sister,” The Red woman implored him in her dark, husky voice.  
“Fuck that. She can take care of herself, according to her and everyone else." Sandor tried to throw the Red Bitch's hand off only to have her other hand shoot out and grip his face so that he had no choice but to stare into the flames of her eyes.  
“Since when do you listen to 'her and everyone else' Sandor Clegane? You have been given a vision by the Lord of Light. Only you can fulfill it. This why you have had the life you have had, so that you can make the hard choice in this moment. It is the Little Sister that needs you. You must trust that the Pretty Sister can take care of herself."  
"She never has been able to before."  
"Ah, but you must let her grow or she never will. Besides if the Little Sister dies, nothing else matters. You must trust, or all is lost."  
Sandor closed his eyes against her terrible fiery orbs and wetness spilled down his cheeks and onto her hand. He was greeted with another flash of his earlier vision and knew Melissandre's words were true. He could hear the Red Woman chanting something over him. When she fell silent, he opened eyes full of pain. The Red Woman's fine burgundy brows drew together, and she squeezed Sandor's jaw until his mouth opened. Melissandre's covered it with her own mouth, and it felt like she was breathing fire done his throat. As she pushed him roughly from her, he could swear he heard her murmur, "for Shireen."  
With one last look at the crazy Red Bitch he buggered off after Arya.

A heavy silence had fallen over the crypts. Sansa strode forward to lock the gate. The rusty tumbler made the same sound as Ice hitting the headsman's block after it had parted her father’s head from his body, and Sansa fought down the urge to scream as she had done that day. She realized that there was a literal wave of terror running up that dark corridor heralding fear made manifest. _This is the Winter that has always been coming._ “They are coming," she breathed willing herself to be the wall upon which the terror crashed, a shield for her people.  
Sansa thought she’d have to herd people, but when she turned the women and Varys already had the little ones moving. Tyrion was the only one standing still staring at her.  
“My Lady, Sansa, you don’t have to-“  
“Shut up and help me push this statue over," Sansa said gripping her aunt’s effigy by the arm. She did not have time to stroke his ego.  
Tyrion scrambled nimbly between the wall and the statue so that he could push with his twisted legs. “See, I'm quite good at climbing. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for your people,” he finished with a grunt as the statue went over. Varys and Gilly had been working on the stone Brandon across the corridor, and the two Stark siblings fell together in a stone embrace that did a reasonably good job of blocking off the passage.  
“I want to spend my life in the way that is most effective. It is not just men that hope for that, you know,” Sansa informed him frostily.  
“I do now,” Tyrion said grabbing her hand and planting a kiss on her gloved hand. She squeezed his fingers glad that if this was it for her and the living then at least this last was positive. Then Tyrion ducked his small frame beneath the x of the two statues.  
Sansa turned to face the undead that were now heaving against the iron gate. She could tell it would not hold for long.

Sandor caught up with Arya at the gate to the godswood. He’d made good time on his run over as he attracted no undead attention. Though he was tempted to chalk it up to good luck, a niggling voice in the back of his head reminded him of the Red Woman’s chant. The She-Bitch was with a white monster of a wolf who turned its red eyes on Sandor. He put out his hand to the dire wolf in the way his father’d shown him as a lad. The great white beast sniffed then licked his upright brown brother and padded silently into the gods wood. Arya silently caught Sandor's attention, made a cup of her two hands, and then a flinging gesture. Sandor nodded and followed her into the godswood.

Tyrion crouched behind the Stark statues and listened as Sansa’s song soared over the screech of metal being torn from stone. Varys stood across from him a dragon glass dagger grasped in a pale white hand that seemed a lot more capable than Tyrion would have expected. Missandei and Gilly were taking the children through the tunnels. He and Varys would give them as much time as they could by stopping any undead that Sansa didn’t lead away.  
The gate crashed down, and all seven hells broke loose. Though he could no longer hear Sansa, and her song grew fainter with each clang of a gate, shutting behind her, Tyrion took courage from the echoes. _It's ironic_ Tyrion thought as he and Varys fought the stray death that squeezed between the Starks quietly _that our lives and the lives of the children of the North now depend on how quiet the two of us who deal in words and whispers can be._ He sent up a silent prayer to any gods who may or may not be out there for humanity to make it through the night.

Sansa was down to her last gate, her back against a stone wall that allowed her to get barely out of the reach of the longest skeletal arms. A couple had managed to knick her, but she stuck anything that came within her reach with the pointy end. Sansa never stopped singing. Her only other option was screaming, and she was determined not to die screaming. She could see that the push and pull of the undead tide was working the gate loose from the granite. It wouldn’t hold much longer. “Gentle mother font of mercy…” Sansa smiled as the sound of the gate giving up was eerily similar to the sound Sandor made as he fell asleep. The last thing she felt was the gate slamming her to the ground with the force Stark dead.

 

After his part in the godswood was done, Sandor headed back toward the Castle with its white door. Only a sharp yelp saved him from trampling Tyrion. At first, he was ecstatic, but as his eyes scanned the group of women and children without finding Sansa, Sandor's mood crashed. He grabbed the Imp up by hooking his fingers through the arm hole and neck of the small man’s breastplate. “Where the fuck is she,” he snarled hoisting Tyrion six feet in the air.  
“She drew them off with a song. I tried to stop her, but…” Tyrion shrugged despite his elevated position.  
Sandor gave him a vicious shake that probably would have ended the half man as a bloody smear on a tree if there had not been a bunch of round-eyed kids watching. Instead, he held Tyrion very close to his ruined face so that he could growl softly, “I want you to remember how easy it would be for me to kill you when your queen starts handing out rewards for this night’s work.”  
Tyrion did not flinch but looked him right in the eye, all traces of his usual sarcastic banter gone. “Point taken. Clegane, I was forced to wed her once. I won’t do it again unless she consents. Sansa is not a trophy or anything else besides her own person.” The Imp's words saved him from a nasty fall. Instead, Sandor set the little man back on his feet and started off again with renewed urgency. “Clegane,” he turned back to spew profanity. "Twenty feet back that way. There is a door that leads to tunnels down into the crypts. Make a hairpin turn when you get to Ned Stark's statue. That is where she lead the dead.”  
Sandor gave the little man a hard look but said, “Thank you,” before heading off in a new direction.

Sandor found the crypts silent as a tomb should be. His boots lifted a cloud of corpse dust as he followed Tyrion’s directions in a limping jog. Wonder of wonders, the wound that Brienne had given him in their battle for Arya had not troubled him at all until Arya had made him the proudest bastard in all the seven fucking kingdoms by showing the Night King right where the heart is, and sending his whole fucking army to shards or dust. But had he flung Arya quick enough to save Sansa?  
_I don't give a fuck if she used me. I don’t care if she never wants to see me again because I am a giant arsehole, just please let her be alive._  
Thoughts like these were the cadence in his mind until he came upon a downed gate at the end of a long tunnel. By the light of the torch he grabbed from behind Ned Stark's statue, he could just make out the bars under a mound of powdered bones and ragged cloth. He slammed the torch into a wall sconce and sheathed his sword. The gate was too heavy to lift all piled with undead, so Sandor started moving debris, careful not to put weigh on the bars. Even if all that was under there was her body, he could not bear any more harm to come to it.  
There was a glint of torchlight on spun fire. _Did something under there just fucking move?_ Adrenaline surged and Sandor tried to lift the gate again. This time he managed it with some help from what looked like a grimy grave dust encrusted blue-eyed wraith. Sandor heaved the gate against the wall and just stood back to receive her with open arms. If Sansa was somehow undead then he wanted to be too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you guys think of the way it flipped back and forth. I still consider this to be a very rough draft so concrit is very welcome, especially on the action scenes.  
> Also if I've got any Jaime/Brienne fans out there that want to leave ideas for their scene I'd love to hear it as I was not best pleased by what is here, but i wanted to do something for you all just in case the show kills one of them before they at least get to kiss. I hope you all's ship comes in. :)


	6. Dust and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens in the Crypts, stays in the crypts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the smut up. I hope i get the plot up before show time, but to be real this week end is full for me.

Sandor was profoundly grateful to feel Sansa's heart beating like a caged bird under his hands as he checked her for breaks or wounds. At first, he thought her nimble fingers might be doing the same thing as they skimmed over his back. It felt good to know she cared. But then the straps on his armor began to let go.

He pulled back from their quasi embrace, single brow high in question. Sansa's Tully blues blinked out of a body covered crown to heel in corpse dust. The flickering torchlight picked out the odd bit of chunkier filth clinging to furs at her shoulders and caught in her hair or clinging to her gown, but the rise and fall of her chest was still the finest sight he'd ever seen. “Little Bird, what are you up to back there?”

“Surely, you don’t think I’d have armor made for you, without understanding how it comes off,” her voice was cool and matter of fact, but her eyes were hot and frantic and skimming up and down him hungrily.

He’d been suppressing his after-battle instincts to be careful with Sansa. He’d never been a raper, but in his younger days if he could find a willing whore after a battle...well that was about the best way to come down from a fight that he’d found. Nowadays he usually drank. Her look ignited his old battle lust. He took a step back from her. For this, he needed to be sure.

Sansa made a growling noise in the back of her throat and advanced on him. He put one hand on her shoulder and the other under her chin as gently as he knew how insistent that their gazes meet. “You’ve been broke in hard. Are you sure this is how you want it to go?”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and he was sure she was going to slap him, or maybe claw him. _Good, she’s come back to herself,_ Sandor thought as he cursed himself for sabotaging his chance with her. He didn’t want her any other way than willing and aware, and he hoped she could see that in his eyes. Her eyes blazed like the heart of a forge, and she leapt on him. His aching leg buckled under their combined weight and he sagged against the tomb behind him. Her strong hands wrapped around his neck and she pulled herself up to plant a hot, open-mouthed kiss on his shock-slacked lips.

He returned the kiss fiercely as he put one hand under her rump to bring her hard against his erection, leaving no doubt what he wanted from her. He tangled the other in her wild bone strewn hair and enjoyed delving her mouth a little longer. Sandor tore himself away from the kiss. “Sansa,” he begged his eyes searching her face. “I need to hear a yes.”

Her eyes bored into his, her swollen lips plump and red from kissing. “Yes Sandor, please fuck me.”

With a growl he unleashed himself on her. Sandor buried his head in the crock of her neck reveling in feel of her hair in his face, heedless of the taste of death on her skin. Her gasping cries were all he'd ever hoped for, and he would do anything to hear more. To that end, he sent one hand rucking up her skirt while the other remained on her ass supporting her as she rutted against the bulge in his breeches.

He felt his new sword belt turn loose and wondered if she'd practiced at that too. He loosened his grip on Sansa so his laces could be the next casualty of her nimble fingers, but also so that he could get into her small clothes. “Mother, Maiden, and Crone you have the wettest cunt,” he swore reverently as he ran his finger through her slick folds.

“Oh gods,” Sansa said, but her tone had changed and she stiffened. Her hands went from reaching into his breeches for his cock to pushing his hand away from her. He could barely think around the lust coursing through his brain but dumbly followed her lead even as she squirmed out of his grip and wiggled her way down to the ground. Sansa kept her face mostly averted from him, but he could see the blood rising under her pale skin even through the grime of battle. Is that shame or- Sandor didn’t have time to finish the thought before she stamped her foot hard enough to raise a cloud of grave dust and shrieked “Gods fucking damn it!”

It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life, and he wisely raised his hand to cover his mirth. That was when he smelled her blood. Sandor looked down at his sticky red fingers in horror. He was up and moving instantly. “Sansa, are you hurt?” he asked stooping to run shaking hands over her belly and lower torso, front and back. Sandor knew from experience you don’t always feel a wound right away and her clothing was dark and dirty. Maybe he'd just missed it in my rush to have her. _What an unbelievable bastard I am._ Sansa gave him another hot look, but this one was different. The sparks of rage in her eyes were awash with tears. Sansa stifled another frustrated shriek by burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears as she twisted away from him. In a combination of fear, confusion and frustrated lust Sandor bellowed. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I have my moon blood,” she shrieked back at him.

A rush of relief made Sandor light headed, and his grating laughter echoed up the tomb. Sansa made a noise akin to a boiling kettle and launched herself at him. Sandor didn’t even try to defend himself. After a few moments of letting her vent her fury by pounding on him with sharp knuckled blows, he cupped her hot face in his hand. “Why are you angry, Little Bird?”

“Because I wanted this, with you. I’ve heard about lust after battle. This is the only battle I ever hope to be in and I wanted…to enjoy it with you.”

“Then quit hitting me and start kissing me, aye,” he said leaning in to demonstrate.

Sansa tried to turn her flushed face from him. “But-“

“Little Bird, I'm covered in the blood of the men who fought beside me. You're covered in the dust of your ancestors, who gives a fuck about a little more gore?"

“I thought-“

"The first rule of battle lust is you don’t think. If you want this, I’ll gladly give it to you.”

“I do.”

Sandor growled his pleasure and turned Sansa so that she faced the tomb he’d recently been leaning against. He knelt to grab the hem of her skirt.

Sansa whirled on him and pushed him away. He fell out of his crouch onto his arse. “Not like that,” she said her face pale. She none the less followed him down onto filthy flagstones. Sandor cursed himself for a fucking moron as reached up into her hair and pressed his mouth to hers, trying to staunch the wound. And for a while, it worked.

As their need became more urgent, evidenced by Sansa's grinding and needy noises, Sandor pulled away to confess, “I don’t know another way, Sansa.”

She looked down on him with a smile, “Neither do I, but surely we can find one,” and Sansa's hand dove for his laces again. She had his cock out about the time he’d ripped off her small clothes.

Sansa rose up with a knee on either side of his hips and looked down at his dick nearly purple with need and she began to laugh. Sandor scowled up at her. “So there is an end to your politeness, Little Bird.”

She wiped a tear from beneath her eye with the index finger of one hand and wiggled the pinky of the another. “I'm sorry. You're...goodness." Sansa said unable to take her eyes off his cock. "I hardly know what to say, other than this explains so much about Ramsey.”

“I’m going to drive that cock sucking bastard right out of your mind, Little Bird,” Sandor snarled as he lunged up and took her mouth with his again. He fisted his cock and swiped it across the seam of her. 

Sansa gasped into his mouth and lowered herself onto the tip of him. She was so hot and slick he thought he’d cum instantly. _You’ve got one shot at this dog. Don’t fuck it up too soon._ He squeezed the base of his cock viciously, as Sansa made her tortuously pleasurable descent. He could feel her ragged breathes from the inside, and every motion as her body stretched and slid around him was glorious bliss. When he felt her curls brush the hand he had strangling his dick he pulled out of the kiss to look at her. His heart clenched to see her eyes wide open and streaming tears. “Am I hurting you Little Bird?”

“A little,” she said, and when he tried to pull back, she locked her legs around him causing all kinds of wonderful sensations. “No, I don’t want to stop. The pain is nothing compared to,” she arched her back and rubbed herself against his hand moaning, “thaaaat.”

Stars shimmered into Sandor’s vision as he continued his death grip on his cock. “All right then little bird, have your way with me then.” And she did. After a few experimental shifts and bobs, and one caution "You don't have to take it all," from Sandor, Sansa seemed to figure out what she liked, which was a slow slide up his shaft until her opening was just balanced on the tip of his dick, where she would give her hips a little twist that made him gasp and growl. Then she’d slam herself down and grind against his knuckles. And up slowly up again. And again and again, with trilling little cries. “There’s the song,” he growled wonder struck as he rocked his hips gently in time with her and watched her beautiful face open-mouthed and etched with desire.

Her hazy gaze refocused on him pupils wide. “What?” she panted.

"Nothing Little Bird." 

Her copper brows furrowed though she did not break her the rhythm. “This, ah this was the song you wanted me to sing.” She laughed, and it did things to her insides that he couldn’t even describe. “And I told you I’d sing it for you gladly all those years ago. Ah. That was a truer statement than I knew.”

“Aye well, it’s the last verse I’m really interested in.”

“Oh really. And how does that go?”

"However you want, but it ends in your pleasure and my name."

"I ah I am not sure ah um I’m not sure I can manage that." Her words were coming on gasps as her pace picked up. "It's hit or miss. I can't always do it."

"I wish I knew how to help you," Sandor admitted.

"I’ll show you," she said rocking back and bunching up her skirts to bare their joining. “It's just that it takes so much concentration when I’m alone that I can’t imagine doing it here with you watching," Her gaze alighted on his for a moment intense, "though you’re usually there in my mind."

“Bloody hells woman,” Sandor cursed because the site of their joining nearly undid him. Her words even more so.

Sansa looked down as well. “uhg I know I’m sorry." Sansa said disgust edging her lovely voice.

"Don’t apologize. You look fucking fantastic riding my cock. I’m just afraid I’m going to shoot my load before I get to hear the end of your song.” He could not bear to address what she’d said.

She nodded and slipped her fingers across her sex moaning and swiveling her hips. It was the best thing he’d ever fucking seen. She splayed her lips open for him. “This little bump," she explained brushing it with her finger eliciting another chirp of pleasure and causing her insides to tighten around him. “That’s what feels best." She shook her free hand at him, and he complied by giving her the hand that was not keeping him from spilling his seed deep inside her. She guided his fingers until he found the spot that made her sing.

Sandor was tentative at first leery of his own strength on her delicate parts. But as she ground against him, he grew bolder and more sure of himself. He stroked faster, and she slid up and down his shaft faster, crying louder and louder until her song spiraled up into a keen, “Oh gods Sandor!” and her insides gripped him. 

At the sound of his name, Sandor's balls tightened, and he knew his body could be denied no longer. He tried to push Sansa off of him, but she clung more tightly to him with every part of herself than he would have thought possible and then it was too late. A pleasure that he’d never even contemplated ripped through him as he shot jet after jet of cum into her clenching cunt. “Fuck Sansa,” he grunted.

She looked down on him with the most benevolent expression he’d ever seen. She arched her back, and tiny aftershocks raced through her insides sending fissions of pleasure along his shaft and up across his over sensitive head. He yelped and shivered as her cunt milked the last of his seed from him. “Gods woman you’ll be the death of me.”

She did it again and moaned causing his dick to jump in earnest this time. “You’re not getting any softer,” Sansa remarked as she continued to move over him.

“You’re the best thing I’ve ever felt. Guess my cocks not ready to admit defeat.”

"Was there a battle?" she purred, through a smirk.

He grinned up at her like a fool he could feel his face spasming and he could not find it in him to care. It was his practice to speak to whores as little as possible so the novelty sharing this vulnerable moment with someone was brand new for him. Feeling playful, he put one hand on Sansa’s hip, while the other shot up to cradled her skull, then used his considerable core strength to flip them without disturbing their joining, taking care to come with his weight on his elbow so as not to squish her. “Aye, it’s always a battle between a cock and a cunt. Cunt always wins, in the end, reducing a once proud beast into a dribbling mess.”

Sansa stiffened which caused her insides to clamp down on him like a vice. Sandor instinctively thrust forward with his now hardening cock. She bowed her back to meet his thrust and moaned. He retreated slowly and pushed forward again his eyes scanning her face for hints of discomfort. She seemed to be enjoying herself. “So this,” she clenched all her muscles purposefully this time, “isn’t the usual for you?”

"Can’t say. Usually, by this time my breeches are up, my coins are down, and I’m halfway out the door." Maybe it's because I can see her face. Maybe it's just because it is her. His gentle probing was turning from playful to insistent. Sansa was rising to meet him.

Sandor longed to hear her sing again. He was just about to move his hand from her hip to that sweet spot above her slit when she cupped his face in her hand and asked, “Have you only lain with whores then?”

He stilled, more shocked by her question than offended. “Who else would have me?” he huffed.

“I would,” she said staring up at him with her heavenly blue eyes. For a moment he was overcome by the idea that he might fall into them forever and be safe there from all fires. The feeling made his chest ache. _This is not for you. Not for good anyway. Just something she wants to check off her list before they force her to wed again._ He shifted uncomfortably, but she moaned bucking into him. The sound of her pleasure only heightened his overwhelm.

“Speaking of whores, I better go find you some moontea,” he said gruffly as he yanked himself out of her.

A forlorn little whimper escaped her lips and for a moment Sansa was laid bare to him. It was a bloody mess, but he was so far from disgusted by it that he nearly decided to bury his face between her legs. Instead he began lacing his breeches back up.

“What do whores have to do with moontea?” Sansa asked in a bewildered tone as her legs fell closed, her pupils still blown and her words slow and slurred.

"Everything if they are smart, and I have yet to meet a stupid Northern woman."

"Oh," Sansa said as if filing something away for safe keeping. "But I still don’t understand the need."

"So, I don’t leave you with a pup in your belly," he snarled. Sansa recoiled from his words, and he was irritated that he’d had to explain it to her. She was a grown woman after all. _Guess this is why some men genuinely prefer women that are really broken in._

"Don’t trouble yourself for I shan’t be needing it. Ramsey hurt me too bad for that. Also, the chance of a woman conceiving during her moon blood is meager." Her words and tone were sharp and cold, and Sandor worried that he’d hurt her too. Instinctively he reached for her but she halted him with a raised brow, such was the force of her gaze. "I didn’t realize you’d be leaving so soon."

"The undead are gone, the North is safe, and I have shit to do."

Well far be it from me to keep you from your shit.” She spit the last word at him, and despite all that had just transpired, the curse on her lips made his cock twitch. She stood straightened her clothing and exited the crypt recalling to him her exit from the throne room in Kings Landing when his cloak had been about her shoulders. That cloak would be around her shoulders again and he could not bear to be here when that happened. He knelt on flagstones still warm from their bodies wondering what the fuck exactly had just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this is ugly but I'm setting up for the show's separation. I'm really afraid for Sandor. What do you all think is going to happen?


	7. Packing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations are made for heading south. Not everyone is acting in their own best interest, but they are all doing the best they can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always canon is assumed unless I write about it. Some conversations start out canon and end differently to fit this story.  
> Also I have decided that this story will have two endings. The first one will offer Sandor the death that i believe he deserved. Not that he deserved to die, but if it was his time and all then this is how I think it should have gone down. I have it plotted, but it is unwritten. It will be clearly marked and no one is obligated to read it. Then the story will go on with a no death option. I just really need to do this for closure so that maybe I can finally cry about it and begin the healing process.  
> This chapter has a lot of moving parts, but it is basically emotional filler priming us for a trip South.

Sansa sat at the feast table, trying to pretend that she didn’t feel as if her insides had been liquefied and were dribbling out of her. _That’s just your moonblood. You are safe and relatively free._ Sansa had never suffered actual rejection before, and she recognized that she wasn’t coping very well. She had made and discarded several plans for retaliation and vengeance while scrubbing blood, seed and grave dust from her bruised and battered body in preparation for the funeral. Seeing Theon upon his pyre helped her gain some much-needed perspective.  
By noon Sansa had settled on rewards for those who had gone above and beyond their duties to house Stark. She told herself she was arranging these things freely with no expectations, but it wasn’t really possible for her to stop trying to anticipate how people would react to what was offered.  
The feast had reached that awkward point where something positive needed to happen or everything would devolve into maudlin debauchery. Sansa spied Gendry stand from his chair across from Sandor’s, probably off to look for Arya. Sansa smiled into her cup at the thought of her baby sister getting celebrate a well-earned victory.  
Gendry was almost home free when his name rang out across the hall. Sansa waited with bated breath, half hoping that Daenerys would do something to cross her murderous little sister.  
Alas, the Dragon Queen managed to get the party started instead. Sansa affixed a mask of polite happiness to her face as she raised her glass to the new Lord of Storm’s End. Her eyes roamed over the high table, and her gaze snagged on Tyrion’s who then darted his eyes up at Gendry and then back to the Queen. Sansa inclined her head enough to say, yes, she can be magnanimous, though she could not stop her eyes from darting back to the new made Lord. She had once been one half of a Stark-(supposedly)-Baratheon alliance. The prospect no longer appealed, but perhaps if Arya was willing…Sansa brought her cup up to hide her sorrow at the idea of her sister being so far away.  
Once Gendry departed Sansa slipped back the way he came to linger in the shadows and wait for the beginning of her own boons to emerge. Sandor had given her the idea this morning. The dark-haired Northern women wove through the tables, though the one she’d tent Tyrion went astray when a Vale knight made her a courtly bow. _Oh well. If Tyrion wants a whore, he has always known where to find them._ The rest all found their marks, but the one she sent to Sandor. Sansa watched intently as Sandor literally barked at the girl to frighten her away. Laughing inwardly, Sansa remembered being that girl scurrying off. Though she couldn’t hear the growl tonight over the din of the hall, Sansa felt it echo through her core as his growls had this morning when he’d been buried so inside her it felt like he still was.  
She swept up to his table and sat down without preamble. Sitting was not wholly comfortable, but she’d be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of seeing her wince. “She could have made you happy for a while.”  
“There is only one thing that will make me happy,” he ground out not looking at her, but continuing to shovel food around his plate.  
“And what is that?” she asked nonchalantly, every pore of her being on high alert.  
“That’s my fucking business,” he barked at her looking up to make direct eye contact for the first time this evening.  
Sansa returned it steadily, drawing on her all her training to pretend as if the crypts had not happened so that she could take in as much from this conversation as possible. His eyes were really quite lovely without the sparks of rage. “Whatever your business is, I wish you joy in it. Might I make your business my business by offering you Last Hearth? It's a strong keep in need of a strong man to hold it. The Umbers died to a to a man, so you'd need to choose your own men to garrison it, but I have list of suitable candidates.”  
He held her gaze for a very long time as if looking for the lie in her words. His hand groped under the table, and Sansa’s heart skipped a beat knowing all that the wood hid from her view. _Crone light the way, he is unbuckling his belt!_ Sansa had a fleeting vision of him clearing the table with one swipe of his long, muscled arm and taking her right here on the table in front of the gods and everyone else, sealing the bargain of Lordship the old way. She wouldn’t tell him no.  
Sansa was jolted into reality as a great sword hit the table, scabbard belt and all. At some point, he’d stood without her noticing. Now she looked up at him from her seated position entirely at a loss. “Here’s your sword back,” he rasped, his voice sounding like a saw chewing through stone. "If it was supposed to come with the castle as some sort of stud fee, I don't want it."  
Sansa rose incensed and pushed the sword back at him. "It was the best way I knew how to keep you safe!"  
“Well, I made it, which is more than I can say for you when I made the same offer. I don't need it anymore.” His big hairy hand which had felt divine running up under her skirts came to rest on the dire wolf embossed scabbard right next to hers and shoved the sword back to her side of the table. She could feel his strength vibrating along the weapon and up through her arm. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his brow and her breath was coming fast.  
Sansa covered his hand with hers and pushed all the feeling she had into her voice, “I had it made for you, with no strings.”  
“I don’t want to think of this hilt hanging in Mott’s shop again if I fail," he growled. "It should be on the blade your heir swings.”  
“Oh, yes, my little killer. How kind of you to think of him,” Sansa said bitterly, irritated that all men seemed to have an opinion about her reproduction of the same fucked up system.  
Sandor gave one of his old mocking laughs. “Hells, Little Bird, in your family, it might be a her that swings it next.”  
Sansa was slightly mollified by that statement, but she didn’t care to linger on the topic lest she break down and beg him to take the sword. She segued. “So, you’re going to King’s Landing then?”  
Sandor’s brow slanted toward his nose, and his eyes went steely, “That’s my-“  
“fucking business,” she finished for him, and she noticed he shifted his weight. He looked tired, and Sansa suddenly wondered if he’s had a chance to sleep since awakening in her arms. Standing here glaring at each other is not going to solve anything. “All right, you win. If you ever want to…reclaim it, it’s yours.” Sansa could feel Sandor’s eyes on her mouth for a long time before he turned without another word and walked away.  
***  
Gendry was trying to pretend the wine stained lips pressed to his were Arya’s. It was going about as well as acting like the hand digging in his breeches for his reluctantly stiffening cock was hers. He was starled out of his fantasy, when a more substantial hand clamped down on his shoulder painfully. “That’s not going to fix your problem lad,” growled a familiar voice.  
“What the fuck do you know about my problems?” Gendry bellowed as he turned on Sandor. They were in the yard amidst a drunken revelry. He was actually kind of happy to see the other man. Sandor was someone he could pick a fight with. And that was what he really wanted to do.  
Sandor let out the grating bark that passed for a laugh with him. “I know every fucking thing about your problem. More than I want.” The big scarred man bared his strong teeth at the serving wench that still had her hand down his breeches and snarled at her. She gave Gendry one last frightened glance and then she was off like an arrow from a bow. Gendry followed her with his eyes. “Don’t worry about her; Payne is quick to sweep up the chaff.”  
“Her?” Gendry heard himself slur. “I don’t give a fuck about her. I…”  
“I know lad.” Sandor had never taken his hand off Gendry’s shoulder, and now for a fucking wonder, the big man squeezed it, not ungently. “I heard the stable hands talking about it.” Sandor exhaled another grating laugh, but Gendry didn’t think Sandor was laughing at him. “You got balls of Valyrian Steel Smith. Come raise a glass with me ti Beric.”  
“That cock sucker sold me to the Red Woman.”  
“That was years ago. This morning he sacrificed himself to save your woman.”  
That gave Gendry pause. _Had she been so close to dying?_ The look on Clegane's face said she had. Hell, he'd seen the slashes and rips on the scarred man's legs and the scratches on his back as when the Samwell Tarly and the other Maesters made the rounds of the men. “She won’t be mine. Or did the stable hands leave that part out?”  
Sandor’s gaze bored into his and for the first time, Gendry saw the change in the other man. All the anger of the Hound he'd first witnessed raging beneath the Hollow Hill had been replaced by sadness. It was kin to the sadness in Gendry, and it seemed the two very much wanted to meet. Sandor took a deep breath and asked the last question Gendry would have believed would come out of his mouth. “Do you love her?”  
“The stable hands leave that part out too? I better make sure they are telling the story right. I started the whole thing by telling her I love her so she’d know I wasn’t after anything.”  
“Any fuckwit can tell a woman he loves her. I’m asking you if it’s true. Do you love her?”  
“Yeah I fucking do.” It felt good to say it and be heard.  
“Then show it.”  
“How the fuck do I do that? She made it pretty gods damned clear she doesn’t want to be with me.”  
“So what are you gonna do now? Get drunk and fuck a lot of whores. I can tell you right now that is not going to make the love go away. If it’s real, it will wake up with you the morning after no matter how many tankards or cunts you try to drown it in. If you love her, be your best man. Who knows? You might get lucky again if the end of the world comes back around. It’ll be too late by then of course, because there are no gods, but at least you will have made the world she lives in a better place.” Gendry would not have believed Sandor had so many words in him, but they made a queer kind of sense, so he nodded. “Now,” the hand that clamped on Gendry’s shoulder squeezed almost painfully. “You want to drink or do you want to fight. Honestly, at this point I could do either.”  
Suddenly the intensity of Sandor’s pain swam to the surface of his eyes and Gendry was almost frightened by it. “Drink.”  
***  
Arya smiled softly to herself as she crept past Sandor and Gendry passed out against the stall door of Sandor’s horse. They had slumped into each other at some point, and their snores were twining harmoniously into the last stanza of the song of wine. There was more than a little regret in her smile. Just because she’d done the right thing for herself did not mean she didn’t regret the path not taken... _yet,_ she said to herself as she slipped into the stall next door where her own horse stomped and snorted to begin packing for her journey South.  
***  
“Seven hells,” Sandor swore shoving Gendry’s head off his shoulder. “Your mouth smells like the Stranger’s ball sack.” The last time he’d awoken it had been to the Little Bird’s trilling and her talons running up and down his back. This was not an improvement. _And who the fuck’s fault is that?_  
Gendry snorted as he came awake just before his curly, black mop dashed against the straw sprinkled flagstones. “I feel like the Smith is using my skull for an anvil,” he whimpered very quietly clutching his head.  
Sandor hacked and spit phlegm into the straw. He noticed that there was still a wineskin clutched in his hand. Sandor tested it, happy to find that there was still some left. He brought it to his lips and took a swig that he then swished around his mouth before swallowing. He offered the rest to Gendry. “Hair of the dog?”  
The Smith took a long look at the skin and then nodded gingerly. He took a swig and spat it out picking at his tongue. “Blech. I think there was actually some of your fucking hair in there.”  
Sandor grated. “Could have been anyone's really. The cork was out.”  
Gendry gave him the hairy eyeball. “You’re a real cock sucker, you know that?”  
"So a lot of dead men have said.” Sandor grunted getting unsteadily to his feet. “A lot of dead men have tried to talk to me in the morning, actually.”  
“Big threats from a man who gave the wrong sword to a Lady last night,” Gendry said looking blearily up at the Hound. Sandor was now regretting most of the things he’d said the night before, to Gendry and to Sansa. He’d run scared from the feelings he’d experienced in the crypt, and at the table. He’d tried hard to drown those feelings, only succeeding in nearly spilling them all over the whole fucking castle grated out one filthy drinking song after another, interspersed with bullshit ballad or two. He refused to remember singing, if the noise he made could even be called that, Jonquil and Florian, or the Hymn of the Mother. _No help for the words or the songs now though._ When he’d seen Gendry the night before, silhouetted against a torch, Sandor had been so powerfully reminded of Robert that he’d felt moved to say something to the lad before he ended up a wineskin with legs and a cock. In the process, he may have spilled more of himself than he was strictly comfortable in the morning light, but it’s not as if his feelings were a big secret after the crypts.  
“Boy, if you were anyone else, I’d kick your shiny teeth in,” Sandor growled mildly, offering Gendry his arm.  
Gendry took the proffered hand and hauled himself to his feet. “Thanks for what you said last night about making the world she lives in a better place.”  
“You got a plan for how you’re gonna do that?”  
“Follow Jon and the army, most like.” Sandor nodded. Seemed like a good plan for the lad. “What about you?” the Smith asked.  
“Last time I saw my brother he was in a real bad way. I gotta go take care of that.” Gendry nodded.  
***  
Sansa stood at her window looking down on the bailey, while she ran a brush through her hair. The way it sparked fire in the dawn light unsettled her. It displeased her to see her home over bloated with the Queen’s forces. Sansa watched as soldiers moved through the soup lines and while she didn’t begrudge them the food particularly in light of their great service, what they ate today would take food out of the mouths of the children of the North at the bitter end of winter.  
Sansa was still moving stiffly as she returned the brush to its place on her vanity. The ache between her thighs was more of an annoyance than a pain compared with some of the beatings and rapes of her past, but Sansa marked it so that she could cover up any attempt at compensating for it once she left this room. Other than that she was molted with bruises and small cuts from the scrabbling hands of the undead and the weight of the grate that had pressed her back into the stone floor. She'd screamed herself awake in the darkest hour with her head covered by the furs dreaming of the time she was trapped under the weight of dead before Sandor came. Immediately Sansa tried to force the images of what came next from he mind, but she was quite unsuccessful. His hands on her, in her, uncaring that she bled, shaking and willing to follow her lead. How could they have been the same hands that shoved a sword across the talble at her? Damn stubborn fool! I should have told him to get out of my site and that he'd never be good enough for me. And image of the pain and rage that might pass Sandor's face if she'd said those things caused a physical ache to claw inside Sansa' chest so intensely that pressed her hand over her heart.  
“Celya,” she called into her mother’s dressing room. “Bring the black one, with the leather straps.” There was an idea teasing at Sansa and she found that allowing a plan to percolate in the back of her mind yielded good results. She thought she'd hit upon just the method to get Dany out of her home without the other woman even realizing that was her desire. Now she just needed to await the perfect moment to lay her trap. Looking the part was key. Choosing the right armor was the first step.  
It had been Sansa's maid that had come to check on her after the night mare. That was unusual as generally Lady Brienne would peer in on her if she made noise in her sleep, knowing Sansa still occasionally suffered nightmares. She had a fair idea of what that meant, and Sansa caught her own tiny smile in the looking glass at the thought of Brienne finding a little happiness in the wee hours of the night. “Also can you please, have a tray sent to Ser Brienne’s quarters, and let her know that I will require her presence in the war council this morning.” Arming yourself properly was the second step.  
***  
Jaime felt compressed as if a great weight were upon him. It was strangely akin to the dream he’d had the night before he went back to Harrenhal to pull Brienne out of a bear pit. He’d dreamed of his mother that night as well. Thinking of the wench brought the previous evening into vivid detail and he clung to that state of half consciousness where memories were livid and brilliant. The way firm bulging muscles slid under freckled skin. The way she had rolled them both over mid-fuck so that she could be on top. Jaime stretched and felt his ribs ache where he was sure she had cracked one when her long, strong legs and everything else she had clenched him so tightly as she climaxed. He’d assumed, and he thought about it often, that Brienne would make the same grunting noises she made when she fought as when she fucked, but he found she expressed pleasure with breathy sighs and low moans, the memory of which was making Jaime’s cock stiffen against the new knight's hard abs. Coming fully awake, he realized the weight he felt was the wench flung over him.  
“Good morning to you too.” Her morning voice was low and rough. He knew this about her from their time on the road. This morning there was something shy and sultry there too. His cock twitched.  
Jaime ran hand and stump down her rippling back, reveling in the way she did not flinch from either. Her total acceptance of him shook Jaime to his core, and he had learned last night what it really felt like to become one with someone. He’d been chasing that feeling with Cersei their whole life, but that fruitless hunt had been predicated on the idea that each twin was half of a single whole. Last night with Brienne, Jaime had come to her a whole man, despite being one-handed, and she had come to him a whole woman and they had merged those identities to forge something unique to them. “Would Ser Knight care for another turn at the list?” he invited suggestively sliding his cock against her taut stomach.  
Brienne grinned up at him from where she rested her chin on his chest and he thought she was about to say yes when there was a knock at the door. “Pardon Ser Brienne.” The voice of a young woman carried clearly through the door. “Lady Sansa requires your presence in the War Room as soon as you are armored and fed. I’m leaving a tray.”  
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” Jaime said groaning a bit as he rolled out from under Brienne who was already in motion dragging the sheet with her toward the screen. Jaime reached out to grab hold of the soft linen just below a tiny pink stain. “Let me see you,” he asked.  
A splotchy blush erupted up Brienne’s torso from somewhere south of the sheet. “I’m sure…um…I’m covered in bruises from the battle."  
“As am I," Jaime replied spreading his arms wide to display contusions and a ragged cut across his chest where a finger bone had gouged down under his breastplate along with his nakedness. "As a matter of fact, I have scratch marks all over my back as well." Jaime turned his body to display them, but maintained eye contact with an ever reddening Brienne, willing her to know how much he wanted to see her. As she looked more uncomfortable than ever, he dropped the sheet and let his head face the wall, better to hide the emotion in his eyes. “As you wish, my lady. I shall content myself with the sweetest memories until your return. Perhaps we might bath together. I hear Winterfell has hot springs. That would be much more fun than the stifling bathes of Harrenhal.” Jaime could hear the sound of Brienne sluicing water on herself as he spoke and it sounded as if she had almost knocked the wash bowl over when he mentioned Harrenhal. Jaime smiled at that. He still remembered vividly the look and feel of her naked body giving him his first cock stand not induced by Cersei. Jaime had thought then that it was because of his delirium. He knew better now.  
“I’m decent,” Brienne said softly stirring Jaime from he reverie some time later.  
“You are always that,” Jaime said as he sauntered boldly naked toward her. She stood in a quilted undertunic that hit her mid-thigh, though she had not donned breeches yet. Jaime stopped in front of her and pushed himself on his toes to kiss her. She flinched and he froze. Quick as a snake she darted out to grab his head and smash her lips to his. Once again, he was struck by the strangeness of being the weaker party of a joining. He quickly gave himself over to it, though.  
There was another knock on the door. “My Lady, I mean Ser,” came Pod’s voice.  
“I’ll get that while you put on pants,” Jaime said turning for the door.  
“Are you sure?” She sounded abashed.  
“I’m done hiding,” Jaime said as he flung open the door name day naked and more than slightly aroused from her kiss.  
“Good morning, brother,” came Tyrion’s laconic drawl as he dodged back from Jaime's manhood.  
Jaime ignored his brother for the moment so he could get rid of at least half the people in the hallway. “Your services are not needed today, Pod. I will help Ser Brienne don her armor.”  
“Yes my Lord,” said Pod with much relief before handing Jaime the tray and hurrying away.  
“And as much as I love to see your face of a morning, dear brother, I’m sure we don’t need your services either,” Jaime said to his brother.  
“Oh quite,” Tyrion agreed. “I had just the one question. You’re staying, then?”  
“Why would I ever leave?” Jaime asked glancing behind him at his tall, strong woman with the shining sapphire eyes.

***

Jon followed Arya obediently to the godswood after the war council. He hated that he’d had to overrule Sansa’s movement for resting the troops. He’d actually been heartened by her compassion for the warriors who had saved her home, but at the same time, he was grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate to Dany exactly where his loyalties lie. _I will keep my word. She is my queen._  
Jon felt Ghost pad silently along parallel to him on a path that would take the big white wolf to the far side of the weirwood. He caught the animal's red eye just before it disappeared behind the pale trunk, making the tree look for a moment as if it had three eyes. * but will she ever be pack? * Jon could not be sure if the words were in the rustle of the leaves or just the shadows of his own doubt. Certainly, Ghost had never shared such a complicated thought with him.  
Jon was happy to see Bran waiting for them in the godswood. It meant he would not actually have to break his word to his queen.

***

Sansa watched the dragon’s awkward lift off with a mixture of elation and pity. Despite having a wounded “child,” Dany had fallen right in line with her own wishes. Petyr was right when he told her never to let anyone know her true motivations. _If no one knows what you truly want, they won’t know how to move you._ It had been laughably easy to maneuver the Dragon Queen out of her home.  
Sansa turned to follow the wounded dragon’s progress and suffered a wound of her own. From this vantage, Sansa could see straight out the main gates of Winterfell. A tall, broad figure of a man on a horse the color of the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, was departing. Sansa could tell by the set of his shoulders he did not intend to come back and the knowledge coincided with a sharp twinge in her tummy. Thinking herself alone, Sansa allowed her heartache freedom to seep up to her face as she watched Sandor ride out of her life.  
“My Lady.” Tyrion’s deep resonant voice broke her out of her stricken daze. Sansa scrambled to put her face back together. It would not do to let him sense any vulnerability, but she wasn’t able to bring up the mask in time. “My Lord is the customary response,” he goaded as he came around to face her. _No that’s not right; he’s only teasing you. He’s chosen an incredibly bad time to do, but he means you no ill._ Sansa did not want to fall into the trap that Cersei did, that she was afraid Arya was falling into, in thinking that she only needed people in her family. _Anyone can become an ally with the proper grooming._ Petyr had taught her that himself when he made her, the daughter of a man that he killed with words whispered in the right ear, into an ally. _And as Tyrion see himself as my potential groom, it is more than possible he can be a very useful ally._  
Sansa took a deep breath to settle her nerves but left her emotions on her face. He’d already seen them so now she just had to work with the situation as it was, not how she wished it to be. Knowing the way Tyrion liked to talk about his reasons for things, Sansa made her first question open-ended. “Why her?” The conversation progressed in much the manner she thought it would. He tried to convince her that Daenerys was the answer to the world's problems while she looked for a chink in his armor of fanatic belief in his queen. When Sansa saw the opening, she lunged. “You’re afraid of her,” Sansa surmised aloud more than a bit surprised. Tyrion had hated Joffrey’s fear tactics. That he saw that Dany used more subtle versions of those tactics and still followed her…  
“Every ruler must inspire some fear,” Tyrion defended, but Sansa got the idea that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was her.  
Very real worry for her brother and everyone else riding for the capital welled up in Sansa. “I don’t want…Jon to go down there. The men in my family” my father, Robb, Jon, and…Sandor “don’t do well in the South.”  
“As Jon once told me, he’s not a Stark.”  
Tyrion’s words triggered an idea and Sansa stopped listening to the rest of his words as her mind went cold and calculating. Tyrion could not abandon his loyalty to Daenerys without something else to cling to. Also giving him this information would sew descent among the Dragon Queen’s advisors. Sansa wondered briefly why she was the only who could see that this much power seated upon a woman who was clearly desperate for adoration and incapable of sharing that power, was going to come to a bad end. _Would Tyrion use this information in a way that would benefit Jon?_ Sansa was not sure, but she could hear Tyrion walking away. Her gut, twisted and achy with cramps though it was, told her that she could trust Tyrion. Sansa much preferred cold logic. There was another moment’s hesitation before she called out Tyrion’s name. He turned immediately. “What if there was someone else?”  
His face was all over questions. Sansa explained Bran’s vision and Sam’s journal, to a gape-mouthed Lannister. Then she told him how Jon had sworn she and Arya to secrecy because Daenerys was afraid of his claim. Sansa hoped that Tyrion could see a parallel to how his own father had tried to control and prevent his son’s happiness. _Please see that for the action of the tyrant that she is,_ Sansa prayed. “I will think on all that you have said,” Tyrion told her bowing over her gloved hand.  
“Of that, I have no doubt, my Lord,” Sansa replied, giving his hand a squeeze, willing him to protect Jon.

***

Gendry searched every inch of Winterfell that he had access to before he saddled up and rode out with the army the next day. He wanted to tell Arya he’d take whatever she wanted to give. He didn’t need a lady; he wanted her just as she was. He rehearsed his apology often and well, but he never got to give it.

***

Sansa unrolled a raven’s scroll so sodden that the words were hardly legible. She would inquire with the rookery in what state the bird arrived. At this time of year, it likely had to fly through several bad storms to reach Winterfell.  
The message was from Varys reporting that the wounded dragon had been shot down off the coast of the Stormlands by the Iron Fleet and that Missandei of Nathe had been captured and was now held hostage in King's Landing. Though a swoop of dread knotted Sansa's belly at her own memories as a hostage in King's Landing, she could not keep the cold smile off her face. If only the poor dragon had had a little more time to rest…  
Jaime came wandering up clearly curious about what was going on. “I’ve always wanted to see your sister executed. Pity I’ll miss it now,” Sansa sneered before stalking away. She knew she was being petty, but she hurt inside and out. She also knew in her bones that Daenerys would not let this pass, and could not help feel triumphant that her father's death would soon be avenged. _So what if I let Jaime in on that little secret as well?_  
Sansa soon reached her chambers and decided that a nap might be in her best interest. _A leader must rest when she can._ Just as she was drifting off to sleep an idea jolted her awake. She rang for Celya. "Will you please send a note to Podrick Payne to attend me in two hours. Tell him to make a list of all the books that Lord Tyrion was reading while he was here. If possible he is to gather those and meet me in my solar at the appointed time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you all think of this chapter?  
> What do you think about my decision to have two endings for this piece?  
> Episode 5 broke me for HBO's version of non fan fiction. I am not only watching out of a sense of morbid curiosity. How do you all feel?


	8. On the Road Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Departures and Reunions

Sansa was poring over one of the many tombs on dragons that Podrick had gathered from Tyrion’s rooms just as the maids were beginning to air the vacant chambers out. She’d felt much more energetic after her nap, though she'd dreamed vividly of the crypts. Sansa spent a few moments etching her encounter with Sandor into her mind. She hoped she had not lost anything by not practicing this memory exercise that Petyr taught her sooner. As she committed the scene to memory she couldn't help but analyze as well. It was when I asked him about the whores, she decided. Sandor is very private. If ever we are together again, just the thought made her core throb pleasantly, I will not ask anything of him. Sansa was not sure it she could keep from making him another offer, but she did think she could keep from making demands on him. Sansa had been in a place where she had nothing left to give anyone else. But he had seemed to enjoy giving her pleasure. Sansa could not think of a better way to get an heir. If he doesn't want to be a part of everything that comes after then at least she would have a strong child by a man she respected. Sansa had other options she knew, but Sandor was far and away her first choice, if for no other reason than that he didn't scare her. In fact she felt drawn to him. From the moment he'd ridden under her battlements she'd planned meticulously for their reunion in hopes that if she had enough control of the situation she would not be scared. She understood now that her fear of him had hurt him in King's Landing. Sansa added apologizing for being such a stupid little girl to her list of things to say Sandor when she saw him next. On that list of things may also be a short lecture about riding off under armed.  
Those thoughts occupied her right up until the moment Podrick since arrived with an armload of books. Hours of peering at cramped writing and the setting sun were conspiring to give Sansa a headache some hours later. “Celya, will you light the tallows, please,” Sansa asked her maid. The slight dark-haired girl had been making googly eyes at Podrick since he'd arrived. The squire was doing his best to ignore the pretty maid, but generally failing. Sansa would have to think of another errand for the girl because she really needed all the help she could get with the books and she’d given Brienne the night off to spend with Ser Jaime. “There are so many books, but at least he had a theme.” Sansa would never have guessed that Winterfell had so many books on dragons. She was a little ashamed she hadn’t begun reading them as soon as she’d had the raven that Dany was coming North. _All this knowledge was right under my nose. I need to make sure that I allow myself to learn form Tyrion just as I did from Petyr and Cersei._  
“You remember how he used to be in King’s Landing, reading all night long,” Podrick said as he turned a page seemingly consumed by what he was reading.  
“I do,” Sansa said, unable to stop the upward tilt of her lips. “I also remember you following him around with stacks of books so tall that you fell down the stairs once or twice.” Color flared in Pod’s cheeks and Sansa put her hand on his arm. “I meant no offense, Pod. Anyone else would have done the same. It was a ridiculous number of books for someone your age to carry.”  
“We…we’re…you and me I mean…we are the same age, my lady,” he stammered the blush not leaving his cheeks as he looked down at where her hand rested on his arm.  
“Are we?” Sansa queried, smiling as she drew her hand back. “I hadn’t realized. Well, I was only carrying the one devotional the time you twisted your ankle, which is a sensible number of books for someone our age to carry.”  
“I think I would rather take the fall than waste my life carrying one book at a time,” he said much more smoothly locking eyes with her for a moment before telling the book in his hands, “But that’s just my opinion.”  
Sansa nodded, pondering his words. The room was now ablaze in candles, and Celya was back to making googly eyes at Pod. “Celya, will you please inquire about super?”

“Gods fucking damn it!” Sandor stood in the mouth of the cave and swore at the lowering sky that was coming apart piece by freezing fucking piece. They’d been forced to camp early for a second time by the weather and Sandor was more than a little irritated by the delay.  
“Snow is a natural consequence of Winter,” Arya explained mildly as she turned the hares over the fire.  
“I thought you ended that by shattering the Night King,” Sandor growled as he began setting out the blankets. It was nice having the She Wolf cook. He tried to compensate, hunting and caring for both horses, though the girl could take out the eye of a squirrel at 50 feet.  
“Sometimes the worst storms come at the end of Winter.”

Sansa knuckled a cramp out of her lower back she'd received courtesy of leaning over taking notes from a crumbling tomb. She’d found some information that might be of use to Varys, but she needed to distill it from the long-winded of a long dead maester in love with the sight of his own scrawl across the page, to a concise raven scroll without losing its essence, all while couched in language that would not be obvious in case the missive was intercepted. Sansa was actually quite good at this, but it required her to be mentally sharp, which at the moment she was not.  
"A raven has arrived my lady," Celya said around a yawn as she set down a tray of cheese. It was well past midnight and Sansa had sent her maid down to the kitchens when the grumbling of Pod’s stomach threatened her sanity. “And,” the girl glanced at Pod whose head now rested on an open book mouth slightly ajar. “Lady, I mean Ser Brienne is in the yard…crying.” The girl’s voice was incredulous, and Sansa could hardly credit what she was hearing.  
“Is she hurt?” Sansa asked coming to her feet stiffly.  
The scrape of her chair woke Pod with a snort of “My Lady, I mean Ser,” and he blinked up at Sansa.  
“I didn’t see any blood,” Celya replied, and Pod jerked to his feet, hand on hilt.  
"There is something amiss with Brienne,” Sansa informed him. "Please see to her and let her know I will be down as soon as I address this raven." Sansa said unrolling another soggy scroll her eyes scanning intently.  
"Of course, my lady," Pod said as he hurried from the room.

Sansa almost ran smack into Brienne as she emerged into the yard. It had not taken her long to send the reply, but the large knight was armed and armored with two horses and Pod behind her. Brienne's freckled face was blotchy from crying. “My Lady," Brienne said very stiffly.  
“Ser Brienne,” Sansa replied, trying to infuse her voice with as much concern as she could. Brienne was important to Sansa on many levels, but the other woman was quite standoffish and rebuffed most of Sansa’s overtures of friendship. Sansa suspected that Jaime was the cause of the crying, but was sure Brienne would never tell her so. “Where go those the two horses you have saddled behind you?”  
“My Lady said earlier that she’d like to see Cersei Lannister’s execution. If that was, in fact, true and not just an idle barb then I invite you to get on and come with me.”  
Though Brienne's words were technically courteous and her tone held all it’s usual stiff formality the hurt behind the invitation cut into Sansa. “Brienne if I have given offense-"  
"You know you have. You drop your words like a child scatters toys in the yard. You are a woman grown now, and your words have power. Start acting like it."  
Sansa was taken aback by the chastisement. No one had spoken to her in quite that way since her mother bade her look after her sister in King’s Landing. Sansa felt very contrite. “You are correct. How may I make amends?”  
“By not making me choose between my duty and my heart. Climb up on that horse and come with me to King’s Landing.” The big woman nodded at Sansa’s lovely mare, who looked to be saddled and ready for a long cold journey.  
“But there must always be a Stark in Winterfell,” Sansa said without much conviction. Something was pulling her South.  
“I will have that honor, for a time, sister.”  
Sansa started. She had not noticed Bran in the yard until just then. She laid her hand to heart, trying to press it still. “Are you sure, Bran?” Sansa asked not wanting to tax her brother’s fragile mental state.  
“The threat from the North slumbers even as the one to the South awakens. Don’t forget the bag that you’ve packed or the sword.”  
A chill ran through Sansa with the knowledge that Bran knew about the bag that she always kept packed. She’d thought that was her secret escape plan. Hiding her unease behind a cold mask, Sansa turned to Brienne. “I will accompany you shortly. I must get my bag and set my affairs in order.”  
“Be quick about it, then” Brienne said sharply. Sansa was about done being spoken to in that fashion and she let warning flash into her eyes before gesturing to Pod to follow her and then doing as she’d been told.  
There were a thousand things she needed to tell Pod about how the castle should be maintained, Sansa rattled off about five hundred as they hastened back to her rooms.  
Once there, Sansa went straight to her wardrobe and the bag that contained her plainest warmest darkest gowns. This packing list was a holdover from her days of visiting the gods wood in Kings Landing. Sansa snatched up her pack tugged open the drawstring as she moved over to her work table to shove the direwolf maiden's cloak inside along with a couple of the books on dragons. She swept her traveling furs around her shoulders and scooped up the yellow dog emblazoned sword belt that still had her father’s scabbard containing Sandor’s sword slung on it. “Arm me,” she told an incredulous Podrick as she turned her back to him.  
“My lady I…”  
“Use the sword belt to secure the furs, but do so in a way that the sword is at my back the way that some warriors do with a sword too long for the hip.”  
“My lady that will tax your back sorely. You could easily hang it from your saddle.”  
"It’s Valyrian Steel, so I shan’t be overtaxed, and I want it at my back,” Sansa was losing her patients and her courtesies. She was not truly mad at Podrick, but at herself. _Could my words truly have sent Jaime off back to Cersei? Surely not. Perhaps I am not the only one misdirecting anger._ Pods hands were on her, and they were trembling as he wound the leather around her body. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I apologize Pod. I am nervous and angry and uncomfortable with sudden change.” His hands steadied, and she felt straps tightening, and the weight on her shoulders felt more supported.  
Pod turned the belt so that the buckle was in easy reach for Sansa to unclasp. He surprised Sansa by taking her hand in his and guiding it to something hard just behind her head. “If you have to draw it, bring it out over your left shoulder,” he instructed, squeezing her hands closed over the hilt.  
Sansa turned to look straight into his worried eyes. “This seems a bit rash, doesn’t it?”  
“Not really." He blinked and dug a smile up for her. "Ser Brienne will keep you safe.”

Snow piled shoulder high at the mouth of the cave and Sandor cursed a blue streak. “Just go back to your bedroll, we’re not going anywhere today,” Arya informed him from the snugness of her own furs.  
“You’re not,” Sandor grunted as he swiped an armload of snow down into the cave. This action was followed by an indignant howl of rage as a good bit of displaced snow came pour into the cave.  
“If you don’t have any care for yourself, think of the horses,” Arya said of the animals hobbled at the front of the cave. Her black palfrey whose name was shortened from a vile curse because of her tendency to bite the hand that fed her stamped in agreement, and Sandor’s courser nickered in agreement.  
“How the fuck long are we going to be trapped in here?” he growled.  
“The howling winds stopped about midnight. I see sunlight. With a melt and a refreeze, it should be safe to dig our way out tomorrow as long as no fresh powder comes down tonight. If we can’t move, neither can the army.”  
“It’s not the army I’m worried about. It's the gods damn dragons.”  
“Surely she wouldn’t…” but Arya could not find a true way to finish that sentence. She hated being wrong. Instead, she closed her eyes and dreamed about wolves for the first time in a very long time.

Sansa groaned audibly as she slung her leg over her saddle. They'd ridden half the night from Winterfell and all the next day through hock high snow that was basically the best one could hope for during a Northern Winter. When they could smell the cook fires of the army Brienne found a likely clearing, she hoped was out of reach of the centuries. They'd set up a tent and combined their bedrolls into a double layer heat sharing pile of blankets. They had not bothered with a watch as the mostly likely thing to find them were army scouts. Brienne knew Lady Sansa had a story prepared in case they were discovered, though neither woman wanted to waste time.  
They skirted well around the army, which took them about half the day winding though needley pines, bare oaks and ashes, and the eerily red and white weir wood trees. Where they only grew sparsely in the South Brienne was surprised how often they passed the brilliant red rustling foliage above pale weeping faces. Once they’d even ducked behind one after surprising a lurking scout. Brienne thought they were caught for sure, but the man seemed unable to see them as long as they kept the tree between themselves and him. They ringed round the weir wood five times before the stubborn Northman gave up.  
As the two women set out around mid morning, Brienne worried about Jaime. _Had he managed to avoid the army? What if he was a captive?_ Brienne was just making up her mind to ride into the camp and check when Sansa turned toward her and put her pale, slender hand on Brienne’s arm. It was ridiculous as gestures went as Brienne had no hope of feeling anything through her plate, but she was a bit comforted by the effort. “If the army has him, they will march him down to King’s Landing where we will meet up with him. I can’t risk being bogged down with them.”  
_And just when did this become all about you again?_ Brienne thought to herself trying to keep her scorn off her face. But Sansa had received a raven on the road last night. A hitherto unheard of happening, though Sansa had acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. She’d scribbled something on a scrap of parchment and sealed it by scraping double esses into a blob of wax with the tip of the claw that depended from a chain around Sansa's neck. The tip was sharp enough to puncture skin and Brienne suspected that it was coated in poison. Sansa had learned her lessons well and though she didn't look armed; she certainly wasn't helpless. At the time of the raven's arrival, Brienne had been so worn out with oscillating between self-pity and worry that she had not bothered to inquire about the nature of the message. After some sleep, she was beginning to question the wisdom of her reactions and this journey as a whole.

Mother and Warrior were the first to react to the sounds outside the cave being the closest to the snow-clogged opening. They whickered to wake their dozing heardmates. Both of the two-leggeds awakened immediately, the filly, no the young mare for her scent had recently changed, rolled out of her sod, claws out, while the stallion’s leg seemed more affected by the cold, though he too was able to heave to his feet leading with his longer claw. Just as he stood the wall of snow behind them burst in covering horse and people alike. 

The sun was falling into bruised clouds roughly the color of the bruises that covered most of Sansa's body as she heard a familiar bellow. She and Brienne had been pushing their mounts through knee-high snow for the last couple of hours after returning to the King’s Road South of the army. Sansa had had her eye out for a cave that her father and bothers used to camp in whenever they would visit the Barrowlands. Just as she spotted the lopsided face of the weir wood tree that Bran has always described as “one eye bigger than the other,” three Northmen shoved a bound and snarling Sandor Clegane against it.  
Sansa had already put her heels to her mare’s flanks before she even heard “Where the fuck did she go, Hound?” she heard the leader demanded in Northern tones.  
Brienne grabbed her bridle. “We do not have time for this.”  
Sansa narrowed her eyes at Brienne and called clearly across the road. “For what reason do you detain this man?” in her coldest most authoritarian tones.  
Every eye snapped to Sansa, and she swore she felt the impact of Sandor’s gaze first and heaviest. “Mi’Lady," the burly man who’d spoken to Sandor earlier began, and Sansa found that she had to pull her eyes off of Sandor to look at the man speaking to her as she guided her horse closer to the knot of men between the weirwood. “He was holed up in this cave with the Princ-I mean Lady Arya. We have her horse and her things, but he will not tell us where she is, and he may have killed a couple of our men.”  
"I didn't bloody kill anyone. If w- if I were in that mood you'd all be dead," Sandor growled eyes now fixed on the ground, though Sansa noted that his thumbs pointed up at the branches above him.  
“I do not doubt that the reason that you are all alive is because he was trying very hard not to kill you. In the future, you will never detain my sister nor any companion of hers unless specifically told to do so by her or me."  
“Yes mi’lady,” the man’s wind burnt rosy cheeks became ruddier.  
“I know it is a new idea for you that a Wardens daughter be allowed out and about by herself, but try to think of Arya as you would any Mormont woman,” Sansa said allowing her sadness over the loss of Lyanna to drag at her lips and spark at her eyes. “Can you do that for me?”  
“Aye,” the man said as he straightened up.  
Sansa smiled at him and allowed warmth to leak into her voice. “Good, now unbind Clegane.”  
“What about Lady Arya?” The Northman asked as he went to work on the ropes at Sandor's wrists.  
“Don’t call me that,” Arya said, dropping out of the weirwood tree to land lightly beside Sandor. The men holding him jumped and Arya whirled between them, knife out to deftly slit the ropes binding Sandor’s hands. He bared his teeth at the youngest scout who hastily backed out of biting range.  
“I’m sorry, soldier, I did not get your name,” Sansa said to calm the situation.  
“Taggert Mudd, mi’lady,” the spokesman said.  
“Taggert Mudd," Sansa used the man's name for emphasis with a tired smile she did not feel, but that he echoed unconsciously. "I would like you and your men to stay in this cave to tend your wounded for the next couple of days.”  
The man dug beneath his boiled leather cap to tug on his forelock, but his face lost all the delight it had assumed when Sansa had used his name. “Beggin' yer pardon mi’lady, but that is not scout protocol. We need to send one man back to the main army to report.”  
“Wrong answer, Mudd,” Sandor growled. “One more try, or we’ll start by killing your horses.”  
Sansa’s heartstrings were plucked when as the man’s face looked as if Sandor had threatened a member of his family. She flicked her eyes at Sandor and gave a nearly imperceptible nod, though she was not sure he saw it as his eyes pinned Mudd mercilessly. “There won’t be a need for that, I’m sure.” Taggert Mudd looked very much like he was weighing the prospect of a flogging against the life of a child. Sansa turned toward her sister. “Arya, is the fire still burning?”  
“Embers, maybe,” her sister answered.  
"Can you bring me one?” Sansa said as she turned stiffly to dig in her pack for parchment and sealing wax.  
A few moments later Arya returned holding an earthenware mug gingerly by the handle. Sandor’s eyes narrowed, and he growled. Arya shot him a look and held the container out to Sansa. She looked apologetically at Sandor before she placed her sealing wax against the outside of the mug until it was soft. She smeared it on the scroll she’d received from Bran last night and pressed her initials into it. “When you’ve had a chance to rest a couple of days give that to Jon. He’ll know that you were acting under my orders."  
Mudd reached up and took the parchment from Sansa as was if it were an eggshell. He cradled it in one hand and pulled his forelock with the other. “Aye Mi’lady.”

 

Sandor rode at the back of the party. Partly because he did not want to be a part of the conversation between the three women in front of him, or any other conversation for that matter. Partly because he was seriously considering fading into the darkening woods and making his own way South to Kings. But mostly because he liked watching Sansa sway with the movement of her mount. She did not sit a horse anywhere near as well as her sister. He knew that from their days in King's Landing, though he noted even more stiffness in her seat tonight. A dawning horror crept up his spine as the sway of hers reminded him of the way she’d ridden him after the battle and of the way he'd not been content with just one go, but kept pushing in and out of her until her words had been too much for him, and he'd pulled roughly from her. He pulled away from that memory just as harshly. He could not afford soft thoughts until he'd taken care of the hard business with Gregor. Good thing I’m well rested because I won’t be sleeping tonight, or whenever they next decide to camp as he shifted to alleviate the tightness in his suddenly shrinking breeches. No amount of shifting could alleviate his conscience, though.  
Camping was the topic of conversation to the front. Night was coming on with too little distance between them and the army to be sure they would not be hindered by scouts again. The moon was full, and the road defined; Sandor could ride all night. But, studying Sansa, the way he was, all her tired tells were blaring. From the tilt of her head to the slump in her shoulder, she broadcast a need for sleep that squeezed something in his chest. Gradually, her mare dropped back until it was following Brienne’s big destrier.  
Sandor chuckled to himself and pressed his knees into Warrior’s sides. He wasn’t Stranger, and that was a fact, but he was a good horse, who pulled alongside Sansa’s mare as she began to slide sideways. Sandor put his arm out just as Sansa emitted a buzzing snort. With a bit of effort, he turned her fall into a swing as he slid her smoothly across his lap. The transfer was relatively soundless, but neither the Big Bitch nor the Wolf Girl were alive today because they were unobservant. Both the large woman and the small turned as one.  
If Sandor had been the sort of man inclined toward laughter, their very similar startled expressions would have moved him to it. As it was, he scowled and let his gaze follow theirs. He very much expected to find a pissy little princess with thoroughly ruffled feathers glaring brilliant blue daggers at him as she had when she'd pushed the sword across the table at him. Reality showed him a limp pallid shadow of his fiery little bird. Sandor's scowl smoothed out to a look of concern. Her lovely eyes shrouded by delicately veined lids. Her coppery lashes curled up against the lavender bruises ringing her eyes above and below. Since Sansa and Brienne had shown up at the cave and bailed him out, he’d done his best to avoid looking Sansa in the face. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her body, but Sandor couldn’t face finding recrimination in her eyes. It was bad enough when she'd acted as if nothing had happened between them, if he found that she actually regretted it, he would just ride away. It was a distinct possibility, since he’d been half mad with battle lust when he’d taken her in the crypts, and drunk when he returned the sword that was digging into his shoulder and leg. With all this running through his head, Sandor was aghast by her pallor and guilt-ridden anew at the idea that he was the reason she couldn't sit a horse properly. He almost shook her to make sure she could open her eyes. But as he curled his hands around her arm, his eye was caught by the rise of her breasts, breasts bordered by his yellow dogs and strapping the fucking sword to her back. “Seven hells, when did she last sleep?” He ground out as quietly as he could. She looked almost as bad as she had in Kings Landing at the height of Joff's abuse. Wonder of wonders she turned into him and…snuggled more deeply into his arms, breathing deeply and exhaling on a sigh that left her soft, plump lips parted and curled at the corners.  
“She’s been up since an hour past dawn. I was hesitant to wake her at first light this morning, but after I’d broken camp around her without her stirring, I could put it off no longer,” Brienne reported her big horsey face set in disapproval.  
Sandor held Sansa more firmly across his thighs, settling the sword in a position he could deal with, and pillowing her head against his chest. He could feel Arya’s narrowed eyes as they swept down and over him and Sansa. “Did you fuck my sister?”  
“That’s none of your gods damn business,” he growled.  
“That’s a yes,” Arya stated flatly, and her hand spasmed toward her dagger.  
“If you’re going to stick me with that thing, let me give your sister to Ser Wench.”  
“I’ll take her no matter what is going to happen,” Brienne said as she her knees pressed into her big feisty mount.  
“I’m fine where I am,” slurred Sansa. Sandor was so surprised to hear her sleepy little chirping that he damn near dropped her. She grasped at the fastenings of his jerkin and beamed up at him before her lids slammed down again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I'd love to hear what you think of the chapter. How are you all coping with the end of the show? I'm feeling better with each chapter I write.


	9. Red Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about how our party sorts their riding and sleeping arrangements, because how you get there is just as important as if you get there. :) There is a bit of spoiler in the beginning notes so if you are the type that likes to go in absolutely blind you may want to skip that if don't already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is something a bit mystical about this chapter. I won't say skip it if you don't like it, because then you'll miss the fluff, but I don't think I'll be pulling this much magic into this particular fic again.

Even drowzing in the saddle riding pillion with Sandor, Sansa ached in every bone of her body. Though she was dozing in and out of sleep, the feeling reminded her of King’s Landing; it reminded her of Ramsy. _No! That’s over. I gave him to his Hounds — my Hound._ Sansa had always taken supreme satisfaction in the notion that she fed Ramsey to his own dogs, but even more so that Sandor’s sigil had proved the instrument of her revenge. _And why not?!_ She’d used the thought of Sandor to protect her mind from Ramsy as he wreaked his depredations upon her body. That wasn’t even the only time her mind had strayed to the scarred Warrior in her marriage bed. Sansa had drifted off to sleep thinking of the Hound on her wedding night with Tyrion. And later, when she was fending off kisses in the Eyrie, it would make her think of the kiss Sandor had given her as the light slunk emerald into her room in the Red Keep. She knew now that she’d kissed Sandor that the other kiss had been a figment of her imagination. Just the memory of the heat of his actual kiss drove Ramsy from dreams like hounds after a hare.

Sansa jerked into a groggy awareness. Someone was holding her tightly-someone big, someone male. It was dark. She fought. “Seven hells, girl, if you want down, be still. You’re gonna spook the horse and break your fucking neck.” 

The rasping voice scoured away Sansa’s fear, and she stilled. She turned away from where her face was pressed against his firm chest. As her fear receded, she was able to focus on Sandor’s face in the silvery moon light coming through the ribbon of sky framed by the finger bones of bare tree limbs that scratched at the stars. Sansa's eyes scanned down to take in the trees that lined the road. The Road. What road? The King's Road. South. _We are going to King's Landing to watch Cersei's execution._ While that was not truly Sansa's purpose since receiving the raven from Bran last night, the deep motivation floated up to her from the same place dreams come from. _How did I get on Sandor's horse? In Sandor's lap?_. She glanced up to gauge the likeliness of setting him off with a question. The stiffness with which he now held her did not seem to match with gentle cradling sensation from her dreams before the night mare intruded. In that dream she'd been abed with Sandor in some inn... Her sneaked peak found that he was scowling fiercely into the middle distance. Her heaving breaths had dragged in the leather, cooked meat and horse smell of him and that, along with thinking about the dream before the nightmare, were sending calming waves through her. “I…um…nightmare,” she managed as a feeble explanation. Her mind felt scattered between dreams and the waking world.

“Aye, I gathered that,” Sander growled, at the same time Arya’s face eclipsed his in Sansa’s field of vision.

“Sansa, are you all right? Did he hurt you?” Her sister asked anxiously.

“No, of course not. Arya, back up please.” Her sister complied and Sansa could see Brienne’s stern countenance not far away. The Lady Knight had her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Really, I’m fine. I was just spooked by a bad dream, that's all.” Both Brienne and Arya knew that Sansa still had nightmares about Ramsy, but Sansa was not eager to share that information with Sandor.

For one thing, he’d just called her girl again which rankled. Second, she loved the way he’d looked at her when he told her she’d changed. She would not do anything to jeopardize that image in his mind.

Sandor shifted restlessly beneath her and Sansa realized there was a particular bruise on her backside that was being agitated by repeated jabbing from a hard object. Sansa tried to pull away from the pain only to find the saddle’s cantle with her other bruised hip. The movement produced a pained yelp from her as Sandor sucked air through his teeth in a hissing noise. 

Arya’s eyes narrowed further and sliced toward Sandor. “You really are just a filthy dog.” Her voice was so laden with scorn that it sounded to Sansa more like a growl than words. It dawned on her then that while she’d had Petyr and Cersei for tutors, her sister had had Sandor and Brienne among others. The realization both made glad and jealous. Sansa really didn’t have time to analyze these feelings as the low rumble of Sandor speech was vibrating through her back.

“Aye well if you’d had the Smith laid across your chest for several hours I’d be surprised if you didn’t come off with a case of stiff nips.” Sandor shifted his brutal gaze to Brienne, who was still riding close. “And that goes double for your one-handed sister fucker so you can just take your hand off his ‘honor’ and come get your charge.” Sansa could not be sure which person of their grouping had the reddest face after that diatribe, but she thought it might still be Sandor. Brienne was sidling her mount closer for the exchange, and Sansa got the strangest sense of déjà vu.

“Really I’m fine where I am. I want the next time I move to be toward a fire and some food…if that’s all right with you?” she asked peeping up at Sandor once again, trying to get some hint of his feelings besides acute embarrassment. Sansa silently emanated assurance that she was not at all offended by his body’s reaction to hers. If she were being honest, there had been a heat brewing between her legs since she figured out what was agitating her bruises a moment before Arya called him out. Sansa could not count the times that Petyr had ground an erection into the small of her back when he made her sit in his lap "like a dutiful daughter." Never had she felt so much as stirring in those instances. But this was different, because Sandor was different.

Sansa's only answer from Sandor came in the form of being jolted from her interesting musings as he thrust his arm under her bum and lifted her one-armed off his lap, while he plunged the other hand down his breeches. Sansa caught a glimpse that made her pulse race as he made a very personal adjustment.

Of course, that would be the moment he would catch her eye. “If you see something you like, we'll talk about it later. For now, let’s not test the Wolf Bitch’s patience. I’m not sure I could stop her if she really wanted to geld me,” he grated at her through a smirk that was oddly familiar.

Sansa's face burned at his insinuation, but not even half the heat was embarrassment. Even so, she didn't look down but met his gaze boldly as she addressed the second part of his comment with: “She’d have to come through me first," which won her that look again from Sandor. And another laugh, though there was something unsteady about it.

###

It was not long before Arya located a thicket to camp in. She’d managed to kill a nice fat opossum as they looked for a good spot. She was climbing down from Mother to skin dinner when a shaft of moonlight angled down through the intertwining branches of oak to illuminate Sandor as he used one arm to support Sansa and the other to dismount. Once his feet were firmly planted on the thick foliage, he settled her sister on her feet like she was a sack of eggs. _He really does care about her,_ Arya mused as she spied on the awkward way the two love birds parted from one another, remembering how Sandor used to shove her out of the saddle during their horse sharing days. The scarred warrior found her eyes and a wordless (and largely needless) exchange about camping duties passed between them before he moved stiffly off into the trees with a gait that was new to Arya. After their extended road trip, she thought she’d seen every walk the man had, but as she made the belling incision to began skinning the marsupial she could not avoid noticing this had been a male opossum. That was when the probable cause of Sandor's odd step became clear. Arya smothered a snigger as she looked up to share the joke with Sansa only to find Brienne staring moodily out into the night over the fire she had just kindled. Sansa was nowhere to be seen. Arya rolled her eyes. “They better at least bring back firewood.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Brienne asked. “I hardly think your lady mother-”

“Oh I’m sure she wouldn't approve, but we don’t live in our Mothers’ world, none of us.” Arya interrupted, giving Brienne a significant look. The castle had been abuzz about Jaime answering Brienne’s door name day clad.

“I am a woman grown,” Brienne bristled.

“And Sansa is one wedded and bedded.”

“Not to him.”

“Sandor Clegane is ten times the man her former husband was.”

“That’s why you almost tossed a dagger in his eye on the road?”

“It was instinct," Arya conciliated. "He said some things about her once when he was a different person. I didn’t fully believe him then. Now, I think he was just trying to get me to kill him.”

A silence stretched to encompass the enormity of that idea. Arya had been very close to killing Sandor that day as he lay broken and bleeding where Brienne had kicked his ass off the side of a cliff. The things he’d said then incited a hot rage in her where anything might have happened, including her slitting the foul throat from which all sorts of hate was spewing. The things he said stung all the more because by then she’d taken Sandor off her list. In that rage, Arya had almost reminded him where the heart was. She’d told herself the reason she didn’t was because she’d wanted him to suffer for saying those things about Sansa and Mycha. She’d told Jaquen Hagar the same, and he’d smacked her for the lie. A bond between Arya and Sandor had formed as they’d traveled together. A bond that could not be severed by even the most hateful words. Or it seemed lovey ones whispered in a "pretty sister's" ear. Arya was glad now that she'd never been able to bring herself to repeat Sandor's words to her sister. It would have just caused undue pain, and Arya was about shielding her sister from that now.

When Arya heard that Jaime was staying in Winterfell with Brienne and she could hardly believe it, and she would never believe that the gold handed Lannister was staying there without the new-made knight. “Where’s Jaime?” she asked Brienne bluntly.

Brienne’s face twisted. For a moment Arya didn’t think her mentor would answer. Arya waited out the quiet until Brienne finally found her voice. “Maybe north of us, maybe south. He’s on his way to Kings Landing.”

“Without you. He’s going back to Cersei, isn’t he?” The big knight's face became even more contorted, and Arya came to understand that the larger woman was trying not to cry. “That cowardly camel's cunt.”

“He tried to convince me that he is a terrible person, past redemption, but I don’t believe it." Brienne's voice was thick with unshed tears.

Arya opened her mouth to say something derisive, but was reminded of the pitiful bloody creature that Brienne had reduced Sandor to once upon a time. He’d been desperate for the pain to stop, saying anything to get her to end his suffering. _Could Jaime have been doing the same with Brienne? I’ll look him right in the eye and find out. If I don’t like the answer in his eyes, I’ll show him where the heart is._ Arya reached her hand out to cover Brienne’s. They’d pulled each other out of the mud often enough that the blond did no flinch or pull back. “We’ll find him and keep him from doing anything stupid,” _even if I have to kill him to do it._

###

Sansa could just make out Sandor’s broad shoulders as the moonlight twinkled off the studs in his leather armor when he skulked deeper into the forest where the shadows of the pines reigned. Sansa lifted her skirts to hasten her step lest she loose him completely in the darkness. She was just about to call out to him when instead of skirting the pale trunk of the tree in front of him, he turned toward her with surprising speed. "Strangers balls woman, can't I get a minute alone?” he groused irritably.

"I wanted to talk to you," she explained, hoping he would take her hint at their previous conversation. 

"You lot always do." He sounded cranky but resigned.

"My lot? And just who is that?" Sansa’s dander was up at being grouped with unknown people.

"Women," he barked.

"I suppose that's a step up from having you call me, girl." For a moment the only sound was the rustling of red leaves above them.

"If you followed me out here to give me shit about grinding my cockstand into you while you slept, save it. I know it makes me a bloody cunt, and I should have given you to the big bitch as soon as I realized I couldn't control my own fucking body, but I've always wanted to hold you while you slept." Sansa blinked at this entirely unexpected revelation. Her surprise was mirrored and magnified by the look of utter astonishment on Sandor's face.

She rushed to put him at ease as a lady should. "No, it’s alright. I don't mind. I've suffered so much worse, just from Petyr-"

Sandor jerked back as if she had slapped him. "You _should_ fucking mind," he snarled. “I put my own needs before yours, and it was a low, shitty thing to do.”

“I do that all the time,” Sansa assured him. She was taken aback anew by her unplanned honesty. Whatever was happening was not limited to Sandor. “I wanted you to stay in the North so I tried to bribe you without thinking about any plans you might have for yourself. I told Tyrion Jon’s secret to let him know that the woman he has such perfect faith in does not have the same faith in him, even though I knew it would hurt him deeply.” Sansa clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her next revelation. She hadn't planned to say that first bit about Petyr, or really any of the rest of it. All she wanted to do was calm Sandor so she could get to what she really wanted to talk about. Sansa definitely had his full attention now, though he looked far from calm. She framed what she wanted to say in her mind and then lowered her hands. "You are right. It should bother me when my consent to physical intimacy is not sought." _Telling someone they are right is a good way to calm them down,_ she thought as her mouth continued more or less without her consent. "It's just another way I was broken in hard. I can see that the rage in you has finally quieted. I think being around me stirs it up, but I am too selfish to care about that. I just want to be near you because you make me feel safe." Sansa brought her hands back over mouth least any more of her truth come spilling out.

Sandor's brow lowered over his good eye. “If I make you feel so safe, why are you having nightmares about me?” he demanded.

Sansa tilted her head, puzzled. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Don’t play games with me, girl. Less than an hour ago you were twitching in your sleep whimpering about the Hound. If I haunt your dreams, why do you pursue me? Did he break you so bad that you seek misery?” Sorrow etched Sandor’s features, and Sansa could see that he plainly feared the answer as much as he craved the truth of the matter.  
Normally, she would be happy to assuage his worries, but she was afraid if he knew the truth he would think she was still some little girl crying in her sleep about all the wrongs that had been done to her. Her face heated at the thought and she looked down so that her hair would fall and hide her face. Sandor made an irritated noise in the back of his throat and splayed his hand into hair, tilting her head up, not ungently. His hand was so large that her skull felt cradled by it, from his smallest finger at the apex of her spine to his thumb gently grazing her temple. It felt oddly familiar from other times when he’d physically compelled her to look at him. Instead of snarling at her to look at him, he said nothing, simply fixing her with his steely gaze. Sansa opened her mouth to dismiss the dream as a holdover from being trapped beneath decayed bodies. “Whenever I am in pain, I dream about Kings Landing and Ramsy. It’s usually a lot worse, but I think since you were holding me, since I could feel you and smell you...you came quite quickly in my dream to save me. I mean, you almost always do, but usually not until I’ve wrapped myself up in your cloak.” Since she could not move her head to hide her eyes from his intense gaze, Sansa swept her lashes down, hoping her lids would block the ensuing mockery. She could feel his fingers convulse in her hair at her deeply embarrassing truth, and Sansa wondered if it was a way to stave off a fit of his cruel laughter. Surely, he would think such foolishness to be the height of maidenly idiocy. Silence reigned until Sansa could no longer stand it, and peeped up at him from one eye.

Sandor's face had softened, and there was a hunger in his eyes that made her core throb. He let his hand drop from her face, and Sansa felt a palpable ache in all the places he was not touching her. "What the fuck is going on, Little Bird? You look like you’d rather have splinters shoved under your fingernails than admit I am the hero of your dreams." He growled circling her, and Sansa thought the sound was anger turned inward. _Could he hate what was coming out of his mouth as much as I hate what is coming out of mine?_ The intensity of his feelings gave his words a weight that Sansa could feel in her loins as well as her heart. "I came out here for some relief," he continued darkly as he stalked closer to her, backing her toward the pale tree trunk. When Sansa came up hard against it, Sandor laid both his hands on the pale bark to either side of her head and leaned in very close to her. "Now I can't seem to control my fucking mouth. I want so badly to put it all over you, but I'm a raging asshole that doesn't deserve to lick your boots let alone the rest of you."

Sansa's heart twinged at the honesty of his words even as she railed against how unfair he was being to himself. She didn't think she had words strong enough to heal the wounds that lay between them. So, she grabbed his face in both hands and pressed her lips to his. He hesitated for a moment then opened hungrily, the burnt skin of his lips abrading hers a constant and welcome reminder of just who she was kissing. Reluctantly, she pulled back to answer his question. "I think it's the heart tree making us speak our complete truths.” Sandor looked up to see the red foliage blocking out the silvery sky and looked back down at Sansa with no trace readable on his face that he thought she'd lost her mind. Emboldened by that, she increased pressure where she held his face. “So, hear me now. I forgave you for all your harsh words in Kings Landing a long time ago when I realized you were just trying to warn me about how the world outside the North works. Now all that needs doing is for you to forgive yourself."

Sandor pulled back from her. "How the fuck am I supposed to do that when every time I touch you, I hurt you?"

"You saved my life by lifting that gate off me?" she challenged.

"Aye and fucked you raw in the next minute," he countered.

"At my behest,” she reminded him. “I just need to get used to the size of you is all."

A sound between a growl and a moan tore up Sandor’s throat. "And I need to learn to stop at one go. If you weren't still hurt, I'd beg to have you up against this tree, like the dog that I am."

"Then do it!” she dared him stamping her foot. “Take me right here. I want you to. Pain is a part of life. It’s how we learn. I don’t think it’s right to inflict it on the unwilling or unwary, but I know what I want, and its price. And what I want is you.”

“Gods dammit woman, you just do not get it. I have stood by and watched you hurt and done nothing. I left you in the lion’s den. I am not worthy of you.” Sandor’s voice sounded as raw and agonized as it had the night the Blackwater burned.

“That is bull shit." It thrilled her that for once it was Sandor flinching at her profanity. "That is what you say because you are afraid to say something else. Standing by while I was beaten so that you could live to offer to help me escape was not wrong. Leaving me in King's Landing was you respecting my consent. You can’t have it both ways, hating yourself for what you did and didn’t do.” Sansa urged him with everything she had to see the good in himself, in his actions both past and present. She reached for his face again, but his glittering anger stopped her just short of touching him.

“I can and do torture myself better than anyone I know. Until I met you,” he snarled.

There was a moment of silence as they both digested that truth. Sansa could see how she was putting him at odds with himself by opening old wounds. She pushed through her fear to reach up and cup his face the way she had the night the world burned with jade flame. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore. Please tell me. What would make you happy?” she echoed her query of him at the party after the Long Night.

He pushed his face into her hand and said simply, “You.”

Sansa could not wholly smother the triumphant smile that breached the near-perfect control she'd garnered over her features. “I’m yours,” she said, pushing up on her toes and pressing her lips to his again.

Sandor pulled away from her kiss, looking thunderstruck. “Mine?”

“Yes. If I survive the Dragon Queen and you survive your brother,” Sansa said giving voice to her hunch about his business in King’s Landing, “I am going to need a consort that I can trust. I want that man to be you.” Sandor gave her a long dark look. “I know you think I’m some feather-brained girl with a head full of songs, but I have real plans to make a safe place for myself and my people. I’d prefer the man standing beside is one who has proven his willingness to let me make my own decisions…if you’ll have me that is?”

“Seven save me, Sansa, I’ll have you right now if you tell you’re up for it, but I never want to hear you put yourself down like that. I don’t think…that about you. I never thought you were stupid, just innocent. And my fear of what would happen to you - because of what happened to me when I used to have dreams – that’s what made me rough with my words.” His head bowed as if this confession had drained all the strength from him.

Sansa closed her eyes and years of self-doubt was flushed out of her in a torrent of silent tears in sympathy with the glistening trails on his cheeks. When she opened her eyes again, she found Sandor’s gaze waiting, steady, if more than a little shiny. “I do…know I’m up for it, that is,” Sansa said almost shyly.

As before in the crypts, her words seemed to lose something in Sandor. In an instant, one huge, strong hand drove into her hair; the other began rucking up her skirt. Sansa could feel the cold air on her heated flesh, and it heightened the sensation of his hot hands on her skin. She gasped as both his hands clamped down on her backside and hoisted her up, parting her legs and pinning her against the smooth white bark of the weir wood.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he directed as he grabbed at her small clothes.

“Please don’t tear these. I only have so many for the trip,” she panted primly.

“I’d love to rip every pair you have to shreds so I’d know-“ Sansa had to laugh as the sheen of Sandor's teeth gleamed in the moonlight to prevent the rest of that truth from coming to light. “One day I’m going to fuck those courtesies right out of your head,” he growled as he jerked at the ribbons of her panties. 

“I look forward to seeing you try,” Sansa said as she slapped his hand away to pull the tie at one side so that silk and lace could be pushed aside. Meanwhile, Sandor dealt with the laces on his breeches. Soon Sansa could feel the slippery head of his manhood bobbing beneath her one bare cheek. She arched forward, grinding her pleasure pearl into Sandor’s rippling abs. She had learned much and more from her meeting with the whores in Wintertown, some of it first-hand. Sansa could barely wait to share her new-found information with Sandor, but sadly now was not the time for most of it.

All thoughts of anything else were driven from her mind as Sandor found her pearl with his thumb and her center with two fingers. Obviously he'd been doing something critical thinking about his technique as this was really working for her. Unless...Sansa's paranoid suspicions were banished by his rasping voice in her ear. “So fucking wet.” He laid another open-mouthed kiss on her neck. He proceeded to fuck her with his fingers, pulling back to scrutinize her face when she whimpered.  
“I want this more than it hurts,” she assured him breathily.

He nodded and aligned the head of his shaft with her slick opening and thrust trustingly up into her. Sansa flexed her legs to pull herself closer until she could hold no more of him. “Easy, little bird,” he murmured in her ear. “That’s enough.” Sandor pulled almost all the way out and then thrust into her again and again, never once bottoming out, but going deep enough to the hit the sweet spot deep inside her repeatedly.

“Oh Sandor, oh gods, please don’t stop,” she trilled. She thought she might have heard the scrape of his laughter over her pleas, but she couldn’t be sure because the next moment her world shattered like thin ice over water sending shards of joy to the four corners of her being. The bulk of the pleasure pulsed at their joining where she could feel herself fluttering all around the velvet steel of him. 

Sandor gave a bark of satisfaction and fucked into her shuttering cunt, each thrust setting off a chain reaction of bliss. The rest was just the two of them moving frantically against each other all thought of anything past finding and giving more pleasure nonexistent until she felt Sandor try to pull away. “No,” she commanded and locked her heels into the small of his back. 

“Sansa,” he grunted and tightened his fingers on her ass for a couple more frenzied thrusts, and she could feel the hot spurt of his release paint the inside of her. She groaned primally clutching him with everything she had. Sandor's whole frame shivered and twitched inside her as the aftershocks of her own climax continued to roll through her body. One large calloused hand traced up her back to tangle in her hair, while he burrowed his face in her neck, his breath coming in uneven pants. He leaned away from the tree so that his other arm could snake around her back and squeeze her tightly to him. Sansa slipped her arms around his neck and scraped her nails across his scalp. For a long time, the only sound was his contented growls and the rustling of leaves. “Little Bird, you are playing with fire,” he rasped in her ear his face still buried in her hair.

Sansa pulled away from him. This was too important not to be done eye to eye. “I am not playing,” she assured him levelly. “I need an heir. It is unlikely that I got one tonight, but I am not going to waste my chances.”

He grated out a short laugh. “You may have caught a bastard. For an heir, you need a wedding.” His voice was huskier than usual, and his eyes were very dark and glittery in the moonlight.

Sansa could not wholly keep the laughter out of her own voice. “You just took me up against a heart tree. In the old days that was the wedding.” Another shudder passed through Sandor which she felt beneath her nails, along her chest and back through his embrace, and even in her womb where he was still buried deep inside her. “This doesn’t have to be, though” she hurried to allay any feelings of entrapment he might have. “I didn’t plan this. You can still back out.”

He silenced her with a kiss that made her arch into him. After and endless instant of devouring her, Sandor pulled out of the kiss with a scratchy laugh. “I am going to back out of this, so I don't hurt you anymore,” he gestured to their lower halves, “but I know I'm not lucky enough to get out of a wedding this easy.” He cupped her backside and very gently lifted her off him, with a small grunt.

Sansa couldn’t help the small sound she made as he left her, either. She felt as though a little piece of herself was tearing loose and staying with Sandor. It hurt a bit, but was not wholly unpleasant. She opened her mouth to assure him that if all went well, a small ceremony could be had in the Winterfell gods wood, but ended up saying instead. “I’ve always dreamed of a lavish ceremony with swans and lemon cakes and more recently, you.”

###

Sandor dropped the load of fire would he and Sansa had collected on the way to camp, louder than was necessary, but as quietly as possible while continuing to hold Sansa's hand. He'd assumed his most fearsome scowl, hoping to stave off any input from the Big Bitch or the Wolf Bitch. He should have known nothing would stop Arya.

"The love birds get to break camp tomorrow. There is possum on the spit. You two can sleep in Sandor's tent, and Brienne and I will share hers. Try to keep it down to a dull roar. I'll take first watch," Arya intoned. Her voice was low and raspy and Sandor found that he almost miss her puppy yelping. Almost.

Sandor opened his mouth to say something about hammering smiths when he felt a gentle squeeze on his hand right before Sansa let go and moved to stand in front of her sister, but with her body angled toward her shield as well. "Thank you both for setting up camp and making accommodations for Sandor and me to sleep together. As I have been sleeping the past few hours, I would be happy to take first watch." Sandor took a breath to say something, but Sansa turned on him her eyes hot and blue as the heart of a forge. He let the breath out saying nothing. "Also I think it is quite fair that we break camp tomorrow morning. I'm not sure what that entails, but I am sure that Sandor can show me."

"Aye," he agreed as he eyed the meat propped far enough from the fire to make him feel comfortable reaching out for it, while still close enough to keep it somewhat warm. He was tired in his bones the way he only was after fucking, but resigned to keep watch with Sansa. 

With murmured good-nights between the sisters and a suspicious scowl from Brienne that he returned with fervor, the two warrior women went to settle in for the night. Sandor lowered himself down on a fallen log that the wench had likely hauled near the fire and claimed the spit. Sansa came to sit down beside him, eyeing the meat with a ravenous look that made him a bit jealous. "There are some plates around here somewhere, but I was just going to eat if off the bone."

Sansa's eyes gleamed. "I don't think I can wait for utensils."

"Well then, ladies first," he said, and was a bit startled by the enthusiasm she went at the meat with. Watching her glut herself, Sandor got the inkling that she was not going to leave him enough to fill his belly, so he went to his pack for some hard tack and dried meat.

When he sat back down Sansa gave him a comically mournful look over cheeks shiny with opossum grease and held out the spitted carcass nearly picked clean. "I'm so sorry. I don't really know what came over me."

He waved off her apology. "You snored through our, sunset lunch," he said around a mouth full stale bread. Her nose wrinkled up at the mention of snoring so he added it to his vocabulary for the for future use. Truth be told she made a buzzing noise in her nose that was almost as cute as it was irritating. "Have the rest if you want," he rasped, tilting his head toward the spit.

"I'm feeling a bit sick actually," Sansa admitted eyeing the bread in his hand.

He raised his brow incredulously. Sandor was not known for his patience when hungry, nor was he known for sharing his food. He'd once stabbed a man for eyeing his trencher too closely. But Sandor found that he wanted nothing more than to feed Sansa however much she would take, and it had almost nothing to do with watching plump pink lips sucking meat juice off a bone, or even watching her sharp little teeth tearing at flesh. "Would some bread help settle, my lady's tummy?" he offered mockingly. 

"Yes please," she said, trading him spit for roll.

He snorted and began picking at what meat there was left. They ate in comfortable silence. Sansa only nibbled at the bread, and he sensed there was something on her mind, but he appreciated that she let him eat in peace.

"What?" he grunted as he licked opossum grease from his fingers.

"Whatever do you mean?" she said, seemingly startled out of a daydream her gaze torn away from his mouth sucking the marrow from a cracked femur. Her words were proper, but her tone was flustered and he had a pretty good idea what she was thinking about. _And now I'm bloody thinking about it too,_ he cursed himself.

"I mean, I can feel you wanting to say something like a buzz against my skin. What?"

"Oh I was just wondering...what side of the bed, I mean tent, you sleep on? You know so that when I come in from keeping watch, I won't wake you." Sansa's blush and stammer were enough to tell anyone she was lying, but he could smell her dishonesty about what she'd been thinking in the scent of her arousal. He swallowed hard. They could lie to each other again. He'd been half afraid, that compulsion would always be with him. For a man who prided himself on not caring enough about the world's opinion to lie, it was deeply unsettling to learn, by hearing all his secret truths come gushing out like glistening entrails, how deeply he cared for Sansa. He supposed if he was being honest with himself, he'd always known, but would not admit to himself. _And she's trying to catch my pup in her womb?!_ That thought was just too big and terrifying to be confronted while sober, so Sandor shoved it into the dark empty from whence all his other secrets had so recently been vomited. In fact, as much as he'd like to explore the ramifications of the compelled honesty, they were on watch. They needed sleep to be able to ride tomorrow. They needed to ride as far and as fast as possible so he could rid the world of his brother, and go to all the things she'd talked about in the presence of her gods. She'd stroked his yearnings with words that felt almost as good as her cunt clenching him under that tree. Sandor was still grappling with the idea that happiness existed for him. This was not something he'd contemplated since he thought playing with Gregor's toy would make him happy.

With so much to think about and a long tiresome watch with which to contemplate, Sandor let the lie pass. "A big fucker like me lays in the middle of everything he lays down on," he said with a leer imagining sinking down between her lovely legs. His words had the delightful effect of heating her cheeks further, and Sansa licked her lips as her lashes fluttered like a bird ruffling her feathers to signal her mate. Sandor felt a swoop in his stomach that both irritated and excited him. No fancy court lady, or any other female for that fucking matter, had ever used such charms on him and he was pissed that they were working, but also they were working. _You're just as bloody bad as all the fools you've scorned in the past,_ the old familiar snarl in his head sneered. It was drown out by another voice that had been born the day that Sansa leapt to her feet to cheer his victory at the Hands tourney in Kings Landing. _If you are going to the seven hells, you might as well enjoy the ride._ Most of the last decade of his life had been a battle between these two impulses. Elder Brother had helped him learn to feed the wolf in him instead of the rabid dog. The dog would always be there, but Sandor no longer stuck his fingers through the cage for his baser instincts to gnaw upon. "But no worries LIttle Bird, I'll stay up on watch with you."

Coppery brows rushed to try to meet over her nose, and Sandor knew he was ruffling her feathers in a more familiar manner now, but he wasn't sure what was pissing her off, until she coldly informed him. "I watched last night; I can watch tonight." Sandor met her blazing blue eyes and saw that she was looking for trust and respect. He was vaguely irritated by this, though he was not sure why. What she was saying made sense. He could either be a dick about it and piss her off, or he could just go to sleep. He was tired, but feared for her safety. Habit was at war with practicality. "If you truly mean to beat the army to Kings Landing, you need as much sleep as you can get," she continued, her words echoing his earlier thoughts. "I may not be much use in a fight, but there is nothing wrong with my ears or my voice. Also, I can apparently sleep all day in the saddle."

Every line of her body said she was prepared to die on this hill, but also he thought she was offering to ride with him again, her soft round ass pillowing his swollen cock all day, in exchange for his submission tonight. It rubbed against the grain of Sandor's being. He'd never been a partner before. Was that what she'd offered him under the tree? Or was this just following orders with different perks now? It made it his head and other regions south ache. "Alrigtht," he barked so sharply that Sansa jumped. "Wake your Little Sister in a couple of hours. Wake me if you start to doze off before that," he said in a low rasp that was his attempt at gentling his voice. He reached for the dagger at his belt.

"I have my own," Sansa said warily, as she pulled a dragon glass dagger out of the top of her boot. Had he scared her again? Was he sorry for it? He didn't know any of the answers. Sandor nodded approvingly though more at the exposed leg than the little knife. He'd see soon enough if she knew how to use either of them as plans to start teaching Sansa the basics of self-defense devolved into dreams her legs wrapped around him as he lay down right in the center of the empty tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think of the plot device of the heart tree forcing the truths from SanSan. I usually don't like elements that force truth from charries because the truth is so much sexier when it is given freely. I think there can be a lot of value when it's forced out to, though it's often comedic. I love a good laugh but I'd rather have a punch in the feels. I took this short cut this time because, as most of you know, Sandor is going to die in one of the endings to this fic. (Please share your feelings about that if you are so inclined. You can't be as scared of it as I am, but I need to be in control of how he dies. I NEED it.) That being said he doesn't have time to come around to the truth naturally. I just want to know if you guys thought the tree thing was successful. Did you buy it? Did you think it was corny? Be honest, I can take it.


End file.
